The field of organic photovoltaics (OPV) has advanced rapidly over the last several years to the point now of initial commercialization of small scale products. Recent demonstration of efficiencies of 10% and beyond by several groups around the world continue to propel interest in OPV as a potential low-cost, large-scale solar energy technology. This talk will provide an overview of the materials and approaches commonly used in the field today. The operational mechanisms of the devices will be described, focusing on a kinetic description of the carrier generation, recombination, and transport processes, taking into account the impact of molecular morphology of the requisite electron donating and accepting molecules. Thermodynamic analysis of the losses in current devices will be presented, and several concepts for overcoming them will be outlined, in particular focusing on the role of the molecular reorganization energy in determining exciton dissociation rates and allowing for optimal band alignment in the devices. The result of these discussions will be several pathways to achieving significant gains in efficiencies beyond today's values. Lastly, approaches to industrial upscaling that utilize the intrinsically rapid production that is possible with OPV will be presented, along with a discussion of what performance metrics and production rates will ultimately be needed to significantly impact the world's energy portfolio.