Konarka announces strategic investment by Konica Minolta

Konarka Technologies, a manufacturer of "Power Plastic" material that converts light to energy, reports that its current roll-to-roll process simplifies manufacturing scale-up, has significantly lower capital and labor costs than previous generations of solar cells and can be produced using existing coating and printing equipment.

The two companies signed an agreement for full-scale collaboration for development and distribution of organic thin-film photovoltaics (OPV). Konica Minolta’s investment is of 20 million US-dollars according to the contract. The goals of the R&D efforts include higher conversion efficiency, longer life, lower manufacturing costs and the realization of mass production of next-generation PV.

www.instalbiz.com