SCIENTISTS in the North have launched a drive to make it easier and cheaper for householders to switch on to solar power.

Durham University’s Centre for Renewable Energy is working on overcoming the technological challenge of producing new and less costly ways of extracting electricity from daylight to power homes.

“People want solar power. I really believe that if there was a cheap solar product out there, then people would buy it,” said the centre’s director Prof Ken Durose.

“One of the main issues in solar energy is the cost of materials and we recognise that the cost of solar cells is slowing down their uptake.

“Solar cells are magic – you put daylight in and get electricity out. If it is cheap enough, people will buy solar and hook it up to their domestic electricity supply. The idea would sell itself. You make a one-off investment and you get free power, and it’s not invasive.

“If you can make solar panels more cheaply, then you will have a winning product. The technical problem is how to make it cheap enough.”

Thicker silicon-based cells and compounds containing indium, a rare and expensive metal, are more commonly used to make solar panels today. The centre is redesigning the next generation of solar cells and tackling the task of how to make layers of expensive materials used in cells much thinner.

With layers as thin as 500 times less the thickness of paint, the next problem is how to ensure it is spread continuously across the cells with no holes which would affect performance.

The four-year project also involves experiments on using a range of alternative materials. The research is financed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

It is part of a success story which has seen the centre pull in around £10m in research funding in the last three years.

The hope is that the development of more affordable thin-film solar cells will lead to cheaper fuel bills, less reliance on burning fossil fuels and reduced emissions. Solar power currently provides less than one hundredth of one per cent of the UK’s home energy needs.

“I see it as a scientific campaign to create a situation where in 15 years’ time people will be buying cheaper solar cells for domestic use,” said Prof Durose, who hopes that 10% of power for homes can come from daylight.

To aid its research, the university has taken delivery of a £1.7m suite of high powered electron microscopes, funded by the Science Research Investment Fund, which allow scientists to see the effects that currently limit the performance of solar cells.

One of the microscopes is the first of its kind in the UK and Prof Durose said: “This instrument will put the North-East right out in front.

“We are working on new ideas in renewable energy and this opens up tremendous opportunities in research.”