1838

Edmund Becquerel observed and published findings about the nature of materials to turn light
into energy. They were considered interesting, but were not pursued.
1860 - 1881
Auguste Mouchout was the first man to patent a design for a motor running on solar energy.
Receiving funds from the French monarch, he designed a device that turned solar energy into
mechanical steam power and soon operated the first steam engine. He later connected the steam
engine to a refrigeration device, illustrating that the suns rays can be utilised to make ice! He was
awarded a medal for this.
His groundbreaking research was cut short though. The French renegotiated a cheaper deal with
England for the supply of coal and improved their transportation system for the delivery thereof.
Mouchouts work towards finding an alternative was no longer considered a priority and he no
longer received any funding from the monarch.
1873
Willoughby Smith, a Brit, experimented with the use of selenium solar cells after discovering its
sensitivity to light while testing material for underwater telegraph cables.
1876 - 1878
William Adams, wrote the first book about Solar Energy called: A Substitute for Fuel in Tropical
Countries. Him and his student Richard Day, experimented with the use of mirrors and was able
to power a 2.5 horsepower steam engine. Much bigger than the Mouchout's 0.5 horsepowered
steam engine. His design, know as the Power Tower concept, is still in use today.
1883
Charles Fritz turned the sun's rays into electricity. His solar cell had a conversion rate of only 12%.Another big milestone for solar energy history!
1885 - 1889
Charles Tellier, a Frenchman who is seen as the father of refrigeration, experimented with a nonconcentrating/ non-reflecting solar motor. He installed the first solar energy system for heating
household water on top of his very own roof. However, his desire to pursue his refrigeration
interests led to his abandonment of solar energy experiments.
1868 - 1888
John Ericsson, an American immigrant from Sweden wrote these powerful words: "A couple of
thousand years dropped in the ocean of time will completely exhaust the coal fields of Europe,
unless, in the meantime, the heat of the sun be employed." He dismissed Mouchout's work and
also developed a solar powered steam engine, very similar in design to Mouchout's.
Solar Energy history continues into the 20th century...
1892 - 1905
Aubrey Eneas formed the first Solar Energy company - The Solar Motor Co. They sold the first
Solar Energy system to Dr. A.J. Chandler of Mesa, Ariz for $2,160. It was destroyed less than a
week later by a windstorm. They sold a second one to John May, but that one too, was destroyed
by a hailstorm shortly afterwards. This led to the company's downfall.
1904
Henry Willsie recognised the need to store generated power and built 2 huge plants in California.
He was the first to successfully use power at night after generating it during the day. Even so, he
was not able to make a sale and his company too folded.
1906 - 1914

Frank Shuman's company, Sun Power Co, built the largest and most cost-effective solar energy
system covering 10,000 square feet plus. Although it produced a lot of steam it did not produce
enough pressure. Together with E.P. Haines he then formed Sun Power Co. Ltd. They built an
irrigation plant just outside of Cairo, but unfortunately it was destroyed during the Great War.
1954
Calvin Fuller, Gerald Pearson and Daryl Chaplin of Bell Laboratories accidentally discovered the
use of silicon as a semi-conductor, which led to the construction of a solar panel with an efficiency
rate of 6%.
1956
The first commercial solar cell was made available to the public at a very expensive $300 per
watt. It was now being used in radios and toys.
1950s - 1960s
Space programs employed solar technologies. In 1958 the Vanguard I was launched. The first
satellite that used solar energy to generate electricity.
1970
The Energy Crisis ! (OPEC oil embargo). A bit of solar energy history we are all familiar with.
Suddenly it became important to find an alternative form of energy as we realised just how reliant
we really are on non-renewable, finite resources like coal, oil and gas for our existence.
Solar energy history was made as the price of solar cells dropped dramatically to about $20 per
watt.
1980 - 1991
A Los Angeles based company called Luz Co. produced 95% of the world's solar-based
electricity. They were forced to shut their doors after investors withdrew from the project as the
price of non-renewable fossil fuels declined and the future of state and federal incentives were
not likely.
The chairman of the board said it best: "The failure of the world's largest solar electric company
was not due to technological or business judgment failures but rather to failures of government
regulatory bodies to recognize the economic and environmental benefits of solar thermal
generating plants."
Solar energy history played a big part in the way society evolved and will continue to do so -Today
There is a renewed focus as more and more people see the advantages of solar energy and as it
becomes more and more affordable.
Governments across the world offer financial assistance.
Solar electric systems are now used to power many homes, businesses, holiday cottages, even
villages in Africa.
We see solar cells powering anything from household appliances to cars.

History of Solar
From ancient Greek homes built to face the warm winter sun to advanced thin-film photovoltaics,
which generate electricity from the sun, humans have used the suns rays to meet their energy
needs. This makes sense, given that the sun showers the earth every hour with enough energy to
meet world demand for a year. And the best part: this energy is pollution-free, inexhaustible and
accessible to many.
A Brief History of Solar Energy
Ancient Greeks and Romans saw great benefit in what we now refer to as passive solar design
the use of architecture to make use of the suns capacity to light and heat indoor spaces. The
Greek philosopher Socrates wrote, In houses that look toward the south, the sun penetrates the
portico in winter. Romans advanced the art by covering south facing building openings with glass
or mica to hold in the heat of the winter sun. Through calculated use of the suns energy, Greeks
and Romans offset the need to burn wood that was often in short supply.
Auguste Mouchout, inventor of the first active solar motor, questioned the widespread belief that
the fossil fuels powering the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century would never run out.
Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion.
Coal will undoubtedly be used up. What will industry do then? Mouchout asked prophetically.
In 1861, Mouchout developed a steam engine powered entirely by the sun. But its high costs
coupled with the falling price of English coal doomed his invention to become a footnote in energy
history.
Nevertheless, solar energy continued to intrigue and attract European scientists through the 19th
century. Scientists developed large cone-shaped collectors that could boil ammonia to perform
work like locomotion and refrigeration. France and England briefly hoped that solar energy could
power their growing operations in the sunny colonies of Africa and East Asia.
In the United States, Swedish-born John Ericsson led efforts to harness solar power. He designed
the parabolic trough collector, a technology which functions more than a hundred years later on
the same basic design. Ericsson is best known for having conceived the USS Monitor, the
armored ship integral to the U.S. Civil War.
Solar power could boast few major gains through the first half of the 20th century, though interest
in a solar-powered civilization never completely disappeared. In fact, Albert Einstein was awarded
the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics for his research on the photoelectric effecta phenomenon
central to the generation of electricity through solar cells.
Some 50 years prior, William Grylls Adams had discovered that when light was shined upon
selenium, the material shed electrons, thereby creating electricity.
In 1953, Bell Laboratories (now AT&T labs) scientists Gerald Pearson, Daryl Chapin and Calvin
Fuller developed the first silicon solar cell capable of generating a measurable electric current.
The New York Times reported the discovery as the beginning of a new era, leading eventually to
the realization of harnessing the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.
In 1956, solar photovoltaic (PV) cells were far from economically practical. Electricity from solar
cells ran about $300 per watt. (For comparison, current market rates for a watt of solar PV hover
around $5.) The Space Race of the 1950s and 60s gave modest opportunity for progress in
solar, as satellites and crafts used solar paneling for electricity.

It was not until October 17, 1973 that solar leapt to prominence in energy research. The Arab Oil
Embargo demonstrated the degree to which the Western economy depended upon a cheap and
reliable flow of oil. As oil prices nearly doubled over night, leaders became desperate to find a
means of reducing this dependence. In addition to increasing automobile fuel economy standards
and diversifying energy sources, the U.S. government invested heavily in the solar electric cell
that Bell Laboratories had produced with such promise in 1953.
The hope in the 1970s was that through massive investment in subsidies and research, solar
photovoltaic costs could drop precipitously and eventually become competitive with fossil fuels.
By the 1990s, the reality was that costs of solar energy had dropped as predicted, but costs of
fossil fuels had also droppedsolar was competing with a falling baseline.
However, huge PV market growth in Japan and Germany from the 1990s to the present has
reenergized the solar industry. In 2002 Japan installed 25,000 solar rooftops. Such large PV
orders are creating economies of scale, thus steadily lowering costs. The PV market is currently
growing at a blistering 30 percent per year, with the promise of continually decreasing costs.
Meanwhile, solar thermal water heating is an increasingly cost-effective means of lowering gas
and electricity demand.
As youve seen, technologies have changed and improved for decades. Still, the basics of solar
thermal and photovoltaics have remained the same.

Solar energy has been used by humans for thousands of years. For example, ancient cultures
used energy from the sun to keep warm by starting fires with it. They also kept their homes warm
through passive solar energy designs. Buildings were designed so that walls and floors collected
solar heat during the day that was released at night to keep them warm. If you have ever stood in
the sun to get warm then you too have utilized solar thermal energy.
The discovery of photovoltaics happened in 1839 when the French physicist Edmond Becquerel
first showed photovoltaic activity. Edmond had found that electrical current in certain materials
could be increased when exposed to light. 66 years later, in 1905, we gained an understanding
of Edmonds' work when the famous physicist Albert Einstein clearly described the photoelectric
effect, the principle on which photovoltaics are based. In 1921 Einstein received the Nobel Prize
for his theories on the photoelectric effect.
Solar cells of practical use have been available since the mid 1950s when AT&T Labs first
developed 6% efficient silicon solar cells. By 1960 Hoffman Electronics increased commercial
solar cell efficiencies to as much as 14% and today researchers have developed cells with more
than 20% efficiencies. 20% efficient means that out of the total energy that hits the surface of a
solar cell, about 20% is converted into usable electricity.
The first long-term practical application of PV cells was in satellite systems. In 1958 the
Vanguard I, was launched into space. It was the first orbiting vehicle to be powered by solar
energy. Photovoltaic silicon solar cells provided the electrical power to the satellite until 1964
when the system was shut down. The solar power system was so successful that PVs have
been a part of world-wide satellite space programs ever since. The sun provides endless
nonpolluting energy to the satellite power systems and demand for solar cells has risen as a
result of the telecommunications revolution and need for satellites.
The energy crisis and oil embargos of the 1970s made many nations aware of their dependency
on controlled non-renewable energy sources and this fueled exploration of alternative energy

sources. This included further research into renewable sources such as solar power, wind power
and geothermal power.
An economic breakthrough occurred in the 1970's when Dr. Elliot Berman was able to design a
less expensive solar cell bringing the price down from $100 per watt to $20 per watt. This huge
cost savings opened up a large number of applications that were not considered before because
of high costs. These applications included railroads, lighthouses, off-shore oil rigs, buoys, and
remote homes. For some countries and many applications, solar energy is now considered a
primary energy source, not an alternative.