Hit “Print” for Solar Panels

Ah, solar panels: so clean, so elegant—and so bloody expensive. Covering your roof with photovoltaics may save you money in the long run, but it requires the installation of a lot of heavy and expensive equipment up front. Thin-film solar panels, printed on sheets at industrial scales, are slowly making inroads, but suppose you wanted to power something much smaller than a house — an appliance or an alarm clock, say. Never mind waiting for industry to invent the product you're waiting for. According to a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, it's now possible to print photovoltaic cells on paper almost as you would a document — and almost as cheaply too.  - TIME.com