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Dye sensitized solar cells have been a target of the solar industry for more than a decade

Though not as efficient as other varieties of thin-film cells, they are low cost, easier to manufacture and potentially applied to flexible sheets of materials, such as plastic.

Five or six leaders will emergy by 2015, says SolarPrint's Mazhar Bari

Companies in the United States haven’t been as keen on them as several big corporate Asian giants – specifically Sony, Samsung and Toyota.

“The Asians are really advanced,” says Mazhar Bari, CEO of the Irish company SolarPrint, which also is working on a dye sensitized cell.

Bari says that by 2015 there will be five or six companies producing these cells – and the impact on the solar industry could be profound. Imagine a thin, flexible electronic reader that folds comfortably onto your lap when you sit down and which draws its power from nearby lighting.

“The end game is flexible,” Bari said this week on a visit to San Francisco. The company also hopes to use them to coat cars and in build construction.

Like its Asian rivals, SolarPrint is in pilot production now, anticipating a product in the first quarter. That product will be a stiff sheet of cells about half the size of an 8½ by 11 piece of paper. It will generate ½ a watt of power with 4 to 5 percent efficiency. Bari hopes to hit 8 percent efficiency in the next 12 months. A flexible cell is two to three years away, he adds.

But that isn’t stopping SolarPrint from calling on some of Silicon Valley’s top consumer electronics manufacturers. On Bari’s schedule for Thursday is Apple.