History of Solar Energy All the Way Back

Believe it or not the history of solar energy goes back over two thousand years to the Greek and Roman ages  who  were the first people  to actually  plan their houses to make the best use of the suns energy, for both light and heat.The well known  Greek philosopher Socrates,  in histories first recorded writing on renewable solar energy  concerning the power of the sun when he stated  that all houses  should be south facing so that they got maximum sun in the winter.

The Roman nobles  took it to another level when they made the first recorded  use of glass window panes on the south facing side  of the villa’s, the enormous cost meant  that only the richest could do this. Two ancient civilizations both suffering from what might be thought of as a contemporary  problem  that of energy shortages, in this case the was not enough wood to go round , wood being the dominant  source of heat.

Following  the fall of the Roman Empire there was no thought given to solar energy throughout the dark ages.

Until well into the 1800’s it was generally thought  that the world’s supply of fossil fuels was so vast  that it would be impossible to use it all , particularly when new sources were constantly  being discovered . In 1861 Auguste Mouchet created  a steam engine that was heated soley  by the sun, but  the machine was expensive to maintain and coal prices were coming down so he was unable to secure funds for further  development. He then went on to make a study of the quickly growing  demands of industry and stated that industry’s needs for coal would soon deplete reserves and then what would happen?

The scientific interest in solar energy continued  and in everything electric from then on, an interesting  fact is that although we think of battery powered vehicles as modren technology, until about 1905 there was a larger  percentage of electric cars  reistered till modern times. Their development was stopped  because battery technology was unable  to economically overcome the enormous weight of the batteries themselves. The World speed record  of 1905 had more electric vehicles  entered than gasoline engine  vehicles , it was won by a gasoline engine  car with a winning  speed of 60  miles per hour, that and the decreasing  price of gas stopped  serious  research  until  the oil crisis  of the 1970’s refocused attention on solar and other alternative  forms of energy, this almost  brings the history of solar energy up todate .

The interest in solar power, up till  the 1950′s, diminished to scientific research,in fact  the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded  to Albert Einstein for his research into the principle of photoelectric effects on electrical generation. However  it stayed almost entirely a scientific research project till  the early 1950′s when Bell Laboratories developed  a silicon based  solar cell capable of producing  some electricity, but after 3  years of research  it still cost sixty  times as much to generate a watt of electric energy  using solar as apposed to using fossil fuels . So research  was cut right back till the oil crises of 1973 .

World leaders suddenly had to wake up to a world where the oil costs doubled overnight so massive  investment was put into the search for more cost effective solar cells and twenty years later in the 1990’s we had efficient residential photovoltaic cells, but by then the oil crisiswas long gone and gas was again inexpensive  and plentiful but for how long? 

Over the last decade  solar cells have risen  in efficiency and fallen in price to a point where homemade solar panels are a real choice for DIY home solar energy, ready to start writing your own history of solar energy.