The story
Dye-sensitized solar cell technology was invented at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1988 by Brian O'Regan and Michael Grätzel. Their paper, "A low-cost, high-efficiency solar cell based on dye-sensitized colloidal TiO2 films", was published in 1991 in the journal Nature, and spawned a new research field to harvest electrical power from sunlight. Since that time, Michael Grätzel, now at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), has received numerous awards and accolades in relation to the invention of DSCs, and maintained close links to Dyesol as Chairman of Dyesol's Technical Advisory Board.
From 1994, STI and Greatcell teams in Australia and Switzerland developed DSC technology and established the world's first DSC prototype manufacturing facility in Australia in 2000. Key to that development phase was the invention of processes, new materials, and equipment to manufacture DSC products. Dyesol acquired the laboratory, manufacturing equipment and intellectual property which has resulted in a large portfolio of patents. Dyesol further acquired STI in 2006 and Greatcell in 2007.
Dyesol Limited was formed in 2004 to accelerate the commercial development of DSC technology and build on the DSC work of previous 14 years carried out by Sustainable Technologies International Pty Ltd ("STI"), Greatcell Solar S.A. ("Greatcell"), and Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). It was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2005 (DYE) and the German Open Market (D5I.F), and is trading on the OTCQX (DYSOY) through its depositary BNY Mellon.
In May 2013 Dyesol announced that Dye-sensitized Solar Cell (DSC) technology has achieved a technical breakthrough by achieving a solid-state DSC (ss-DSC) efficiency of 11.3% at full sun. The technology is particularly important in solar markets where light conditions are sub-optimal, such as Europe, North America and North-East Asia, or low-light conditions (such as indoor applications) where much higher efficiencies over 30% can be achieved.
On July 11, 2013, Dyesol /EPFL announced a new record DSC efficiency. Michael Grätzel stated "Our research work on solid-state Dye Solar Cells (ss-DSC) is now achieving efficiencies exceeding 15%". However, this is now considered a perovskite solar cell and the official accredited DSC solar cell efficiency is 11.9% determined by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This efficiency is not expected to greatly increase as the DSC field has largely shifted to the development of perovskite solar cells which have achieved certified efficiencies over 23%.
From Wikipedia’s article on GreatCell Solar, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3