A solar panel development that has taken decades is a step closer to reality.

Final trials of printed solar panels on sheets of plastic are underway at the University of Newcastle in the New South Wales Hunter region.

Using conventional printing technology, electronic ink is printed onto clear plastic sheets with the finished product incredibly lightweight.

The creator of printed solar, Professor Paul Dastoor, said the emerging technology is expected to shine in disaster-affected areas.

"What we do know right now is that if there's a disaster the first thing people need is power," Professor Dastoor said.

"Typically that's generated by a diesel generator and you have to truck in fuel."

"Imagine being able to print, on demand, thousands of kilometres of lightweight solar cells that you can deploy immediately."

The University's Dr Ben Vaughan said that printing speed is key.

"If there was a disaster and they needed power very quickly, we could be printing many hundreds of metres or kilometres of solar panel in days and have it on a plane shipped over there," Dr Vaughan said.

Printed solar is made up of five layers of printed material, encapsulated between two layers of plastic. ( ABC News: Kerrin Thomas )

Its weight also means it's well-suited to developing countries.

"If you compare this to a typical silicone module; it's made of glass, and while that's relatively robust it's quite heavy, the advantage of this technology is that it's incredibly light," he said.

"If I had 1000 square metres of typical silicone cells, that would weigh the equivalent of roughly three African Elephants. 1000m2 of this material would weigh about 100 kilograms.

"That weight difference is really important for being able to ship it to third world countries, but also in a lot of those places the structures just will not take the weight on the roof of those type of solar panels, so this is a technology that they can actually use."

The research team has pushed the printing technology to its limits.

"The layers that are inside the device are very thin, so a lot of the layers are about a thousandth of the thickness of a human hair, so they're extremely thin," Dr Vaughan said.

"Once we've printed all those layers we will encapsulate the device with a protective layer of plastic so it's mechanically tough, it's not going to get damaged too easily, and so you can put that on roofs outdoors and it'll be totally fine."

Printed solar panels are being tested on the roof of the University of Newcastle. ( ABC News: Kerrin Thomas )

Panels could be on roofs within three years

The research team is currently collecting data about how well the solar cells are performing at a 100m2 trial site located at the university.

"We've been working in this space for 15–20 years all the way from small scale devices now up to very large reel-to-reel printing of solar modules.

"What we've just done is install the first 100m2 of solar modules on one of the roofs here at the university," Professor Dastoor said.

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"We have all those modules now hooked up and they're transmitting data allowing us to quantify and measure exactly how they're performing, which is really very exciting.

"It's the first time this has been done here in Australia.

"The cells are performing exactly as we would like and we're able to test different ways in which we've made them, different sealants and so on, so it's all looking extremely promising."

The creators of printed solar said it could form part of the answer to the so-called energy crisis — an installation the same size as what is being trialled at the university has the potential to provide half the power needed for an average home.

When production ramps up to full-scale, printed solar could power thousands of homes.

"We estimate now that even based on our small printer, that we can print hundreds of metres of solar cells every day which means that we'll be able to power using scaled up printers, say thousands and thousands of homes... it's very exciting."

Printed solar is expected to be available commercially in about three years time - and it's not just designed to go on roofs.

"One of the things about these cells is that they're not as sensitive to light intensity," Professor Dastoor said.

"Any part of the roof will generate electricity; even walls, windows, surfaces of vehicles, tents, lightweight structures, roofs that can't take a heavy conventional silicone solar cells are now accessible to these modules.

"We will massively increase the area of solar cells that we can produce and generate power from, so we think it's going to be a big change to the way in which we think about power being generated renewably."

The printer prints the five layers of the solar cells onto a layer of plastic before it's sealed with another layer of plastic. ( ABC News: Kerrin Thomas )

Affordability achieved through decades of research

The research team has developed a product that's also incredibly cheap to produce, according to Professor Dastoor.

"It's really low cost. We have done extensive economic modelling and our gauge is that we can produce these at scale for less than $10 a square metre — try buying carpet for less than $10 a square metre," he said.

Dr Ben Vaughan works on the printing of the solar cells. ( ABC News: Kerrin Thomas )

Dr Vaughan said cost has been one of the main drivers in developing the technology.

"We are trying to develop a solar technology that doesn't require government assistance, no feed-in tariffs, no subsidies, anything like that," Dr Vaughan said.

"What we want to develop, what we are developing is a solar technology that stands on its own two feet in terms of the economics, so you can print these devices at a level where the cost is very low, where it just makes good economic sense to use it on your roof of your home or your business."

Dr Vaughan said the next stage of development is to take the new technology to a full industrial scale.

"Instead of printing on something here which is 30 centimetres wide, we can start printing on things that are half a metre or a metre wide, two metres potentially wide," he said.

"That's where you can get the real economies of scale of this roll-to-roll technology because you're able to produce an enormous amount of material for low cost."