What is Photovoltaic Film?

Our sun offers a potentially huge reserve of clean, free, endless energy. All that is needed to convert solar energy into usable electricity is a photovoltaic (PV) system. Most people are familiar with photovoltaic cells or have seen them work before, such as on solar powered calculators, emergency road signs and call boxes, and other places. As PV technology has advanced, a new type of PV material has begun to be used, namely photovoltaic film. This film has the same function as the traditional PV cell, but with a construction that makes it flexible and much more versatile. One of the biggest advantages to photovoltaic film is that it can harvest as much energy from the sun as traditional solar cells, but it takes about 100 times less semiconductor material to make photovoltaic film. This means that the manufacturing costs goes down substantially in comparison. This is especially intriguing to those who see PV systems as an alternative source of energy. In the past, it has been ...  more