Solar Energy History
Looking for Info on Solar Energy History ? You'll find it here
A story thousands of years in the making. Man has used solar energy to dry food and clothing for millenia.
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the light at the end of the tunnel is bigger than a pinprick and growing fast.
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We'll begin our journey back in solar energy history at 700 years B.C.. Records indicate that it was around this time that mankind began to make discoveries about the sunlight that they had always used in a passive manner.
Info on Solar Energy History - The Beginning
7th Century B.C.
As early as 7th century BC, man began manipulating the sun for purposes other than warming and drying.
A giant step was taken when it was discovered that a ray of sun directed through a piece of glass could start a fire if the ray fell upon something flammable.
3rd Century B.C.
By 3rd century BC, Greeks and Romans were reflecting the sun's rays from mirrors to set ceremonial torches alight.
2nd Century B.C.
The story goes that in 2nd century BC, Archimedes, using bronze shields, reflected a beam of sun onto a troublesome Roman wooden ship in the harbour and set it ablaze. Whether the story is true or not it has since been proved that it can be done
For the next thousand or so years man was content to use the power of the sun for the purposes of starting fire , passively warming homes and drying food and skins.
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After all it would be another two thousand years or so before the first light bulb would make an appearance and the need for a toaster had yet to take firm hold. |
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Over these early years of Solar Energy History, civilizations learned to orient homes and communities to face the sun (south) and take best advantage of it's warmth. The sun would warm the adobe or stone front of the building and radiate it's heat into the dwelling well into the evening.
1st to 4th Century A.D.
1st to 4th Century Romans used passive solar to heat bath houses. Glass windows facing the sun allowed the sun's rays to penetrate and warm the bathhouse, then prevented it from escaping.
6th Century A.D.
Passive solar heating was becoming better understood and for the next several hundred years sun rooms appeared on the south facing side of many Roman residences.
The heat collected in the glass sunroom was allowed in to warm the home when the doors between the sunroom and home were opened.
So popular were sun rooms by 6th century AD that Justinian's Sun-Right Law provided for all buildings to have a right to the sun's rays. The law prevented new structures from blocking a building's access to the light.
Also around this time from 700 AD the Anasazi's were building adobe dwellings almost always oriented toward the sun to take best advantage of it's warmth in winter.
1050 to 1300 A.D.
Around 1050 AD to 1300 is the period of the Anasazi cliff dwellings. Built in South facing cliffs with natural stone overhangs the communities were warmed in winter by the low hanging sun but the stone overhang provided much needed shade on hot summer days.
Solar Energy History - Discovery Phase,
1700's
1767 saw the first major solar discovery since a flame had been kindled with the sun's energy.
French/Swiss sceintist Horace de Saussure in the mid 1700's after numerous tests, prototypes and adjustments fashioned the first solar cooker.
Using a wooden box with a black cork bottom and placing three separate sheets of glass over it and finally insulating it he was able to maintain an internal temperature of 230 degrees F. Easily hot enough to boil water and cook a meal!
Today's solar cookers largely resemble Saussure's invention.
1800's
By the 1800's discoveries were being unearthed at a faster rate. By the latter part of the decade as little as three years would pass between discoveries.
The photovoltaic ~ photo (light) voltaic(power) ~ effect was discovered in 1839 by Edmond Becquerel a French Scientist. The first to discover that light intensified the amount of electricity generated between two electrodes.
From 1860's to 1880's the first solar powered engines were produced and put to use.
1876 selenium's photoconductivity properties were discovered proving that light could be changed into electricity by a solid material. Although initially only small amounts of electricity were produced, by 1883 an American inventor had figured out how to produce a selenium solar cell.
1891 saw the first commercial solar water heater patented by Clarence Kemp an inventor from Baltimore.
Up to the end of the 1800s Solar Energy History had made a moderate amount of progress over a great deal of time.
To see how Solar Energy History progresses in the 1900s
click here.
Solar Energy present and future.
Solar Energy present and future.
Solar Energy History in the 1900's
