Levelised cost of electricity for organic photovoltaics

The success of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) as a future energy source is entirely dependent on the cost of the electricity produced by the modules. This study provides the first commercial scale levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) estimates for OPVs by integrating OPV-specific measured and calculated data into the estimates. The impacts of physical and financial variables are also investigated. The study shows that OPVs will become equivalently priced with current conventional solar technologies when efficiencies of 2% and lifetimes of three years are achieved. At efficiencies of 5% and lifetimes of 3-5 years the LCOE for OPVs will be competitive with that of current coal-based electricity generation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.