infinityPV’s CEO: Printed Solar Cells Need to Happen

For decades, scientists have been pursuing an exceedingly ambitious goal: They hope to provide clean energy for the entire world. Solutions including fusion, wind, solar and more are all in the works, each with their own sets of promises and costs.
 
Frederik C. Krebs, CEO of infinityPV, sees one clear path to a renewable energy future: “Printed solar cells hold the promises of solving our energy needs – we have the technology, all needed materials are abundant, and we spend extremely limited energy producing them.”
 
Professor Krebs has been leading the development of polymer solar cells from his position at the Technical University of Denmark. On Jan. 1, 2018 Krebs left behind the world of academia and stepped into the leadership role of infinityPV full time.
 
“I am really happy and look forward to dedicating all my time to the technology that I have worked on for 18 years,” said Krebs. “I want to make infinityPV realize the full potential of organic photovoltaics and printed solar cells and I want to enable anybody to manufacture, implement and disseminate this technology in the right way.
 
“Academia has lifted this technology. Once we struggled for 1% efficiency and now laboratory records easily exceed 10%,” noted Krebs. “In many ways, the discovery phase is over for the technology. We have high efficiency and good lifetimes, but we will continuously encounter challenges as we scale the technology. I believe these new challenges are best met in the private sector, where scientific ambition does not interfere with our focus.”
 
infinityPV was founded in 2014 and since then the company has focused on building a vertically integrated business around printed solar cells. The manufacturing of printed organic solar cells is a multidisciplinary problem from organic chemistry to roll-to-roll printing.
 
“Organic solar cells are often viewed and compared to crystalline silicon which is a tremendously successful technology,” Krebs added. “Currently we cannot compete with the prices of installed capacity for silicon, but we must not forget that the true potential lies in the thin outline, flexibility, freeform design and scalability.”