Green Futures: PV good to go

04 February 2008

A Cardiff-based company is about to ship the first of a new kind of solar charger, more durable than the conventional silicon cell type. The technology it uses has been a long time coming to market, but promises to be well suited to the needs of the developing world – where mobile use is set to soar from 600 million to two billion people by 2015, but mains electricity is often scarce or unreliable.

Invented no less than 18 years ago, Dye Sensitised Thin Film is a flexible material for photovoltaic conversion of light to electric power, which also performs well indoors and in other low-light conditions – even sunny South Wales. The chargers being despatched by G24 Innovations to Kenya-based Master IT represent its first commercial application.

The new charger may only be one of a growing range of solar devices for powering phones, iPods and cameras, some of which can now even store their power so you can hook up overnight and capture the previous day’s energy. G24i, however, claims to have made the first chargers specifically designed not just to cut the carbon but to keep the cost down for customers in Africa and elsewhere.

Following a successful planning application for a 2.5MW turbine at its Cardiff site, the company should also soon achieve its aim of producing them using only renewable power.