Breakthrough for Pittsburgh's leading cleantech company

Plextronics just released news that it has achieved a world record for solar power conversion for single layer organic solar cells.

From the press release:

Plextronics, Inc. announced today that its organic photovoltaic technology achieved a world record in the conversion of solar light to power efficiency. The company's result of 5.4 percent establishes a new world record for single layer organic solar cells as certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, Colorado.

This is huge news for not only Plextronics but for Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is behind in the race to build a clean tech economy, but I believe we have a gem here in Plextronics, an early stage developer of printed electronics and thin layer photovoltaic cells, and with its success and the national press coverage Plextronics could very well be in the process of buiding the foundation for Pittsburgh's clean economy.

While I expect this record to be broken, the old record was somewhere around 5.2%, I also expect Plextronics to continue to improve their technology and remain one of the leading developers of these thin layer solar cells. I'll post again as I learn more on their progress.