4 MAJOR MILESTONES IN THE JOURNEY TO SOLAR ENERGY
By Nate Hamon
If you Google search the question “How old is the sun?” you’ll find that it was born in 1964. Then you’ll realise that the top answer is referring to the British tabloid famous for headlines such as “Werewolf Seized in Southend” and “Man Who Made Love to Pavements”.
The star above us that is the centre of our Solar System, is a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, and provides us with heat, light and a stable orbit is closer to 4,600,000,000 years old than 60. That’s a lot of candles.
Over the millions of years that we’ve lived on this planet we have figured out different ways to use the sun to our advantage. It took until only a couple of hundred years ago however, to figure out how to convert the sun’s energy into electricity. That’s probably longer ago than many realise but still a short amount of time relative to the earth and human existence. We are now in an historically enviable position where we can collect and store solar energy by having panels and solar batteries installed in our own homes.
While there have been many milestones that have taken us from making raisins by drying grapes outside in the sun to using that same gaseous star to bake a raisin loaf in the oven, here are just 4 of major moments:
DISCOVERY OF THE PV EFFECT
Edmund Becquerel, the “Father of Solar Panels”
The catalyst to solar energy as we now have it was the 1839 discovery of the Photovoltaic (PV) Effect. The credit for this discovery goes to a 19-year-old French experimental physicist Edmund Becquerel. Becquerel learned that certain materials could produce an electric current when they were exposed to light.
THE INVENTION OF PV CELLS
This discovery was followed by the invention of the first PV cell, (which used selenium cells,) in 1883 by Charles Fritts. The world’s first rooftop solar “panel” (it was more of an array,) was installed in 1884 atop a New York City building.
Charles Fritts’ first solar array. NYC 1884
As is often the case with new discoveries and subsequent inventions, it took some time before the PV cells could be used practically and really make an impact on the world. The selenium used in these cells was not very efficient as a photovoltaic material.
MAKING SOLAR CELLS EFFICIENT
Russell Shoemaker Ohl, Solar Panel Inventor
The next major step forward in utilising the sun for energy occurred when American scientist Russell Shoemaker Ohl discovered that when sunlight struck a wafer of silicon, large numbers of free electrons were produced. Soon after R.S. Ohl patented what many consider the first modern solar cell “Light sensitive device”.
PRODUCING EFFICIENT SOLAR PANELS
In 1954 Bell Laboratories in the USA took the lead, creating solar cells that crossed the 10% threshold for the first time.
The first Bell Solar Panel (photovoltaic panel)
Being tested in 1955 in Americus, Georgia
The efficiency of solar panels, and the ability to store energy with solar batteries has increased the investment value dramatically since 1954. Everyone has an opportunity to invest in this money and planet saving technology.
Talk to one of the friendly team at Enewabls, the energy storage experts, today to ask about how they can install batteries for your solar system.