Chemical bath depositon (CBD), performed in an aqueous environment under mild conditions, was employed to deposit ZnO nanorod arrays onto the surfaces of conductive glass and conductive flexiable substrates. The as-grown ZnO nanorod arrays were combined with ZnO nanopaticles and studied as composite electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells. The efficiency of the resulting cells, evaluated under A.M 1.5G solar simulated light with 100 mW/cm2, reached ~3.2 % with the glass substrate and ~2.9 % with the flexible substrate. The ZnO nanorod array provided a direct path to the conductive substrates, so electron transport was improved and the charge recombination with I3‾ of the electrolyte was reduced. Compared with photoanode showed higher incident photon to conversion efficiency (IPCE). The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to investigate the electron transport properties, and the results revealed that the electron diffuse quickly in the device, leading to high Jsc and overall conversion efficiency.