Millennium Prize goes to inventor of dye-sensitized solar cells

Finland’s biennial Millennium Technology Prize has been awarded to Professor Michael Grätzel from Switzerland for his third generation, low cost, dye-sensitized solar cells.

The Millennium Technology Prize is a tribute to life-enhancing technological innovations. The prize awards technologies that have a positive impact on the quality of life and are based on humane values.

Technology Academy Finland, an independent fund which awards the prize, recognizes that one of mankind’s greatest challenges is to find ways to replace the diminishing fossil fuel supply and that an obvious energy source is the sun.

The winner of the 2010 Millennium Technology Prize, Professor Michael Grätzel, Director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), has responded to the challenge with his dye-sensitized solar cells.

“The constraint of solar energy has traditionally been its price. ‘Grätzel cells’ provide a more affordable way of harnessing solar energy. Grätzel’s innovation is likely to have an important role in low-cost, large-scale solutions for renewable energy,” says the President and CEO of Technology Academy Finland, Dr Ainomaija Haarla, explaining why Grätzel was selected as the winner.

The price/performance ratio of Grätzel’s dye-sensitized solar cells is excellent. The technology often described as “artificial photosynthesis” is a promising alternative to standard silicon photovoltaics. It is made of low-cost materials and does not need an elaborate apparatus to manufacture. Though Grätzel cells are still in relatively early stages of development, they show great promise as an inexpensive alternative to costly silicon solar cells and as an attractive candidate for a new renewable energy source.

Grätzel cells, which promise electricity-generating windows and low-cost solar panels, have just made their debut in consumer products.

President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen handed the EUR 800,000 Grand Prize and the prize trophy “Peak” to Professor Grätzel at the Grand Award Ceremony at the Finnish National Opera, Helsinki on June 9, 2010.

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