Solar Power History

Human civilization has evolved along with solar power history. Man has long been fascinated by the power and energy coming from the sun and has developed ingenious technologies to use it in his everyday life.

Ancient civilizations have the heat coming from the sun was used to preserve food and keep homes warm, simple technologies that are still used until today. Through the centuries of honing solar energy’s potential of becoming a dependable energy source, man has developed and refined a number of technologies used in converting and utilizing solar energy as the inexhaustible, accessible and pollution-free alternative to traditional energy sources.

Early beginnings

The earliest period of solar power history discusses on how the ancient Greeks and Romans have developed and used passive solar designs in their approach to ancient architecture. They were the ones who have considered using the sun’s capacity to light and keep indoor spaces warm. The Romans have advanced their building art by covering face of south facing buildings with mica or glass to hold in the heat of the winter sun. The calculated use of solar energy in building early Greek and Roman buildings then replaced the need to burn wood to keep warm, which then were of limited supply.

Solar Power in the Modern Era

The concept of the first solar collector was introduced in the year 1767, which is invented by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. The concept made way for the development of the beginnings of the technology used in trapping heat by using glass. Through the years, this technology was further improved resulting to the implementation of new methods of utilizing and storing solar energy or solar power. It made way for the development of the very first solar water heating device, which used solar thermal energy to boil water inside a glass box setup.

With the discovery of Selenium in 1817, man has achieved another milestone in solar power history. Sunlight was discovered to amplify the conductivity of the element Selenium resulting to the production of electrical current. This discovery has opened the doors of the early study of photovoltaics. In 1839, a French physicist named Edmond Becquerel made a demonstration on photovoltaic activity. He discovered that the electrical current in certain materials can be increased when exposed to sunlight. By 1861, Auguste Mouchout invented the first active solar motor. He developed a solar powered steam engine; however, the invention was doomed by its high costs as well as by the then falling price of coal.

Through the 19th century, developing new technologies in collecting and utilizing solar energy continued to become the subject of a number of European scientists. They have developed a cone-shaped device that was designed to collect solar energy to boil ammonia and perform mechanisms similar to locomotion and refrigeration. In the case of France and England, this interest was driven by the hope of sustaining their growing operations by using their sunny colonies in Africa and East Asia.

In the United States, a Swedish-born scientist initiated the efforts in harnessing solar energy. John Ericsson’s parabolic trough collector presented a more efficient solar energy collecting device.

Albert Einstein’s Nobel Prize-winning research on photoelectric effect further explained Edmond Becquerel’s work and introduced a phenomenon centering on the generation of solar power through solar cells, which guided the scientists in refining early solar cell designs and technologies. During the 1950s, AT&T labs managed to create 6% efficient silicon solar cells. By 1956, solar photovoltaic cells were created. However, earlier versions of photovoltaic cells were used by Vanguard I, the first solar-powered man-made orbiting vehicle in space. In 1960, the Hoffman Electronics marked another milestone in solar power history by increasing solar cell efficiencies by 14%. The percentage of solar cell efficiencies refers to the capacity of the solar cell to convert usable electricity out of the total amount of solar energy that hits its surface.

The prominence of the study on solar energy and solar power systems did not happen until 1973 with the Arab Oil embargo, which demonstrated the degree of dependency of Western economy to fossil fuel energy sources. As one of the solutions to diversifying the country’s energy sources, The US government then started investing heavily on companies developing solar electric cell systems such as the Bell laboratories. Thanks to the massive subsidies that the government put in the research and development of solar power systems, solar photovoltaic costs have dramatically dropped and have eventually become competitive with fossil fuel sources. Now, with the dwindling supply and skyrocketing costs of fossil fuels, solar power comes as the best and cheapest alternative energy source. Hence, the future milestones in solar power history will open up more possibilities for the renewable and limitless energy provided freely by the sun.