New solar energy company Eight19 launched with £4.5M funding

Spin out

Eight19 Ltd, a solar energy company which will develop and manufacture high performance, lower cost plastic solar cells has been spun out from the Cambridge University-TTP Advanced Photovoltaic Research Accelerator with funding of £4.5 million from the Carbon Trust, a public cleantech investment fund and the international specialty chemicals company Rhodia.

Eight19, so called as it takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds for light to travel from the sun to the earth, has been created in partnership with Richard Friend, Henning Sirringhaus and Neil Greenham of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, and technology development company TTP.

Eight19 will develop solar cells made with semiconducting plastics, or organic photovoltaics, and is built on the Cavendish Laboratory’s capability to develop techniques for fabricating large scale plastic electronic devices on flexible materials using roll-to-roll processes.

The market for organic solar cells has the potential to reach $500 million by 2015 and to grow four fold to $2 billion by 2020 (Nanomarkets, 2009) driven by applications such as building integrated photovoltaics.

The Eight19 team is pursuing a design-for-manufacture strategy that focuses on the attributes of organic photovoltaics to combe specific product performance characteristics and withlow cost of energy.

Unlike other more familiar thin film solar platforms, organic solar cells are not inherently limited by constraints around material supply and toxicity. They also benefit from a number of fundamental advantages including potentially very low cost production enabled by low temperature and high throughput processing typical of plastic films. Organic solar cells potentially deliver further value throughout the supply chain, from ease of installation for construction companies to producers seeking simplified manufacturing integration.

Robert Trezona, Head of R&D at the Carbon Trust, said, “The launch of Eight19 and the deployment of low cost organic solar cells could help to revolutionise solar power production by opening up new markets. Cost reduction through the development of advanced technology and innovative design is key to driving forward mass production and making solar power more affordable.”

Pascal Juery, Group Executive Vice-President of Rhodia, said the investment is in line with the company’s strategy of explore new markets that fit with its sustainable development commitment. “Furthermore, we are convinced that open innovation is key to leverage our research and development capability. We are happy to work in close partnership with prominent scientists to develop this breakthrough technology.”

Richard Friend, Co-founder of Eight19, said, “This represents a great opportunity to transfer new technology out of the university, based on recent advances in fundamental science. Solar cells made with organic semiconductors work very differently to those made with silicon and are closer in operating principle to photosynthesis in green plants.”

Friend previously cofounded Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Plastic Logic.