NanoMarkets released the report "Encapsulation and Flexible Substrates for Organic and Dye-Sensitized Photovoltaics" that claims that novel encapsulation and substrate materials are the key to the long-term survival of organic photovoltaics (OPV) and dye sensitized cell (DSC) photovoltaics. The report projects that a $1.3 billion encapsulation and substrate market will be possible by 2017.

(January 5, 2011 - Marketwire) -- NanoMarkets, an industry analysis firm, released the report "Encapsulation and Flexible Substrates for Organic and Dye-Sensitized Photovoltaics" that claims that novel encapsulation and substrate materials are the key to the long-term survival of organic photovoltaics (OPV) and dye sensitized cell (DSC) photovoltaics. The report projects that a $1.3 billion encapsulation and substrate market will be possible by 2017, if manufacturers of these materials can offer products that will smooth the way for OPV/DSC technology to break into the building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) sector.

While the revenues from selling encapsulation materials into the OPV/DSC sectors will never be huge, the gross margins on those sales will be impressive. OPV/DSC technology will live or die on its ability to penetrate the BIPV sector and OPV/DSC panel makers will have to pay premiums for good encapsulation materials. In addition, NanoMarkets believes that the encapsulation products that are developed for OPV/DSC will find ready markets in OLED and other organic electronic markets in the future.

According to NanoMarkets, the substrate market for OPV/DSC is expected to reach $1.1 billion by 2017 with almost 70 percent of that value coming from glass. Since OPV/DSC allows a much higher degree of transparency than any other kind of PV that might be used with glass, NanoMarkets believes that glass substrate suppliers aiming at this sector of the OPV/DSC substrate market should focus on architectural glass substrates for BIPV, rather than the conventional glass panels used for every other kind of PV.

This report analyzes and quantifies the opportunities for substrate and encapsulation materials used for solar panels using OPV or DSC for the absorber layer. It also analyzes the opportunities for substrate/encapsulation materials by application considering both mobile products and the critical BIPV sector. As well as a detailed eight-year forecast for all of the applications both in volume and value terms.

In addition, the report profiles the strategies of leading suppliers of encapsulation and substrate materials including 3M, Corning, Corus, Dow Chemical, DuPont, DuPont Teijin, Fujifilm, Mocon NSG, Pilkington, Saint Gobain, and Vitex. It also examines how the current generation of OPV/DSC firms including Dyesol, G24i, Heliatek, Konarka, Plextronics and Solarmer are approaching the need to improve OPV/DSC encapsulation and substrate materials.

NanoMarkets tracks and analyzes emerging market opportunities in energy and electronics markets created by developments in advanced materials. Additional details about report can be found at www.nanomarkets.net. The firm recently issued a companion report to this that addresses opportunities in encapsulation and substrates for thin-film photovoltaics in November of 2010.

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