JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF SOLAR ENERGY

TECHNOLOGY : A REVIEW
PROF. R. D. PARMAR

Lecturer, Electrical Engineering Department, C.U.Shah Polytechnic, Surendranagar,

Gujarat, India

raghuvir_dhirubha@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT : This is a review paper about development of solar energy technology.Solar power is not
new.With the help of mirror and glass,humans have started concentrating sun rays to light fire from the seventh
century B.C.Since then due to new inventions now man has reached to solar powered buildings,solar powered
vehicles and even solar powered satellite.

HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF SOLAR developed the first parabolic through solar

ENERGY TECHNOLOGY
Humans have used the first solar technology to make
fire and to burn ants with the help of magnifying
glasses. Time period for this event is approximately
as early as the 7th century before Christ. In third
century B.C.,concentrating mirrors were used by
Romans and Greeks for the same purpose as wellas to
light torches for religious purposes.
In 20 A.D.Chinese document use of burning mirrors
to light torches for religious purposes.In 1767 Swiss
scientist Horace constructed hot boxes, consisting of
a glass box, within another bigger glass box up to
even five boxes.When exposed to direct solar
irradiation, the temperature in the inner bottom box
rose up to 108 degrees Celsius,warm enough to boil
water and cook food.These boxes can be considered
as the world's first solar collecty ors.This solar
collector was late used by Sir John Herschel to cook
food during his South Africa expedition in the 1830s.
In nineteenth century, Robert Stirling built heat
engines in his home workshop.This engine was later
used in the dish/Stirling system, a solar thermal
electric technology that concentrates the sun’s
thermal energy in order to produce power.
Photovoltaic effect was discovered by the scientist
Edmond Becquerel In 1839, at an age of 19 years
only.This effect is the generation of voltage or
current in a material when exposed to light.He
observed this effect in an electrolytic cell.The cell
was made out of two platinum electrodes,placed in an
electrolyte.An electrolyte is an electrically
conduction solution, and in this case he used silver
chloride placed in an acidic solution.By shining light
on it, he observed that the current in the cell was
enhanced.
In 1860 french mathematician August Mouchet
proposed an idea for solar-powered steam engines.
He believed that the coal resources were limited.He
collector.As coal became cheaper, the French
government decided that solar energy was too
expensive and stopped funding Mouchet's research.In
the following two decades, he and his assistant, Abel
Pifre, constructed the first solar powered engines and
used them for a variety of applications which later
became the predecessors of modern parabolic dish
collectors. In 1873, willoughby Smith discovered the
photoconductivity of selenium.
In 1876 William Grylls Adams and Richard Evans
Day discover that a junction based on platinum and
the semiconductor selenium shows the photovoltaic
effect.Although selenium solar cells failed to convert
enough sunlight to power electrical equipment, they
proved that a solid material could change light into
electricity without heat or moving parts.Seven years
later,American Charles Fritts managed to make a PV-
device based on a gold-selenium junction with a
light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 1%.
Samuel P.Langley invents the bolometer in 1880
which is used to measure light from the faintest stars
and the sun’s heat rays. It consists of a fine wire
connected to an electric circuit. It becomes very
slightly warmer when radiation falls on the
wire.Hence electrical resistance of the wire
increases.In 1887 Heinrich Hertz discovered that
some charged objects when exposed to ultra-violet
light lose their charge faster – photo electric effect.
In 1891,Baltimore inventor Clarence Kemp patented
the first commercial solar water heater.
In 1904, Wilhelm Hallwachs discovered that a
combination of copper and cuprous oxide is
photosensitive. In 1905 Albert Einstein published a
paper in which he explained the photoelectric effect
with assuming that light energy is being carried with
quantized package of energy. Nowadays, we call
these package photons.For this paper Einstein
received the Noble price in 1921.

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 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
In 1908, William J. Bailley of the Carnegie Steel
Company invents a solar collector with copper coils
and an insulated box. In 1914, the existence of a
barrier layer in photovoltaic devices was noted. In
1916, Robert Millikan provided experimental proof
of the photoelectric effect. In 1918 the Polish
scientist Jan Czochralski developed a way to grow
single crystal silicon a technique of great importance
for the solar cell technology based on c-Si
wafers,which has been developed in the second half
of the 20th century.
In 1927, a new type of photovoltaic cell was
developed using copper and the semiconductor
copper oxide. This device also had an efficiency of
less than 1%.Both the selenium and copper oxide
devices were used in applications such as light meters
for photography.[3]
In 1932 the photovoltaic effect was discovered in the
II-VI semiconductor material:
Cadmium- sulfide by Audobert and Stora.In 1941,
Russell developed the silicon photovoltaic cell.
Further refinement of the silicon PV cell enabled
researchers to obtain 6% efficiency in direct sunlight
in 1954.[3] The first theoretical calculations of the
efficiencies of various materials of different band gap
widths based on the spectrum of the sun were carried
out by Dr. Dan Trivich, Wayne State University In
1953.
The real development of modern photovoltaic
devices, as we know them today, started at Bell
labs,U.S. by Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald
Pearson.A silicon solar cell with a light-to-electricity
conversion efficiency of 4% was produced by Bell
Telephone laboratories in 1954,and they later
achieved 11%.In the mid and late fifties various
companies and labs among US Signal Corps
Laboratories, RCA lab, Hoffman Electronics
developed silicon based solar cells to power orbiting
earth satellites.In 1955,western electric began to sell
commercial licences for silicon PV technologies.
In 1956,William cherry ,U.S.Signal Corps
Laboratories, approaches RCA Labs’ Paul Rappaport
and Joseph Loferski about developing photovoltaic
cells for proposed orbiting Earth satellites. In
1957,1958,1959 and 1960,Hoffman Electronics
achieved respectively 8%,9%,10%,14% efficient
photovoltaic cells.
From 1958 and in the sixties, the progress in PV
technology was driven by the energy demand of
space technology.Various satellites in the series
Vanguard,Explorer and Sputnik were launched with
PV powered systems on board.In 1960, selenium and
silicon photovoltaic cells production started by
Silicon Sensors, Inc., of Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
In 1962 Bell Telephone Laboratories launched the
first solar powered telecommunications satellite.In
1963, Japan installs a 242-watt, photovoltaic array on
a light house,the world’slargest array at that time. In
1964,NASA launches the first NIMBUS spacecraft –
a satellite powered by a 470 warr photovoltaic array
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whereas in 1966 NASA launched the first Orbiting
astronomical Observatory powered by a 1-kilowatt
photovoltaic solar array.
In 1968, Professor Giovanni Francia, built the first
concentrated-solar power plant near Genoa in
Italy.The plant was able to produce 1 MW with
superheated steam at 100 bar and 500 degrees
Celsius.In 1969, The Odeillo solar furnace, located in
Odeillo, France was constructed. This featured an 8-
story parabolic mirror.In 1970, Dr. Elliot Berman,
with help from Exxon Corporation, designs a
significantly less costly solar cell, bringing price
down from $100 a watt to $20 a watt.
In 1970 in the USSR Zhores Alferov develops the
high efficient solar cell based on Gallium-arsenide
heterojunction-solar cells.This was the first
demonstrator of a solar cell based on III-V
semiconductor materials. In 1973,The University of
Delaware builds “SolarOne,”one of the world’s first
pho-tovoltaic (PV) powered residences. The system
is a PV/thermal hybrid. The roof-integrated arrays
fed surplus power through a special meter to the
utility during the day and purchase power from the
utility at night.In 1976,at RCA laboratories, Dave
Carlson and Chris Wronski developed the first thin
film photovoltaic devices based on amorphous
silicon.
At RCA laboratories,David Carlson and Christopher
Wronski,fabricate first amorphous silicon
photovoltaic cell in 1976.SHARP and Tokyo
Electronic Application Laboratory in Japan,in 1978,
bring the first solar powered calculators on the
market.In the seventies,the public interest in
photovoltaic technology for terrestrial application
increased due to the Oil crisis, and the increasing oil
prices.In the late 70s and 80s many companies start
to develop PV modules and systems for terrestrial
applications.
In 1980 the first thin film solar cells based on copper-
sulfide/cadmium sulfide with conversion efficiency
above 10% were demonstrated at the University of
Delaware.In 1980, ARCO Solar becomes the first
company to produce more than 1 megawatt of
photovoltaic modules in one year.
In 1981, Paul MacCready builds the first solar-
powered aircraft the Solar Challenger and flies it
from France to England across the English Channel.
The aircraft had over 16,000 solar cells mounted on
its wings, which produced 3,000 watts of power.
Crysalline silicon solar cells with efficiencies above
20% were demonstrated In 1985, at the University of
New South Wales in Australia. In 1984 up to 1991
the largest solar thermal energy generating facility in
the world was built.These 9 solar plants built in the
Mojave Dessert in California, have a combined
capacity of 354 MW. The world’s first commercial
thin-film power module – G 4000 - released by
ARCO Solar in 1986.
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ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Lepcon and Lumeloid – two solar power technologies silicon solar cells. ATS Automation Tooling Systems
were developed by Dr. Alvin Marks and he received Inc. in Canada started commercial development of
patents for the same in 1988.Lepcon consists of glass solar cell in 2002.
panels covered with a vast array of millions of CONCLUSION :
aluminum or copper strips, each less than a micron or With the help of new innovations to make solar
thousandth of a millimeter wide. As sunlight hits the energy cheaper and attractive market policy by
metal strips, the energy in the light is transferred to government sectors,solar power generation can be
electrons in the metal, which escape at one end in the made popular among common people.This will be a
form of electricity. Lumeloid uses a similar approach real salute to the inventor listed above.
but substitutes cheaper, film-like sheets of plastic for REFERENCES:
the glass panels and covers the plastic with 1.“The History of PV,”
conductive polymers, long chains of molecular http://www.pvpower.com/pvhistory.html, November
plastic units. 15, 1998.
The first high efficiency Dye-sensitized solar cell 2.Retrieved from http://www.nrel.gov
was published by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale 3.Retrieved from
Lausanne in Switzerland by Michael Gratzel and co- http://www.californiasolarcenter.org/history_pv.html
workers in 1991. In Dye-sensitized solar cell, a 4.Retrieved from
semiconductor material based on molecular http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/dsh/artifacts/SS-
sensitizers, is placed between a photoanode and an vanguard.htm
electrolyte. 5.Retrieved from
15.9% efficient thin-film photovoltaic cell made of http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/earth/nimbus.html
cadmium telluride was developed by University of 6.Retrieved from
South Florida in 1992. First time a solar cell made http://www.nasm.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/maccread.ht
from gallium indium phosphide and gallium arsenide m
with more than 30% conversion efficiency was 7.Retrieved from http://www.nrel.gov/pvmat/ti.html
developed by The National Renewable Energy 8.U.S.Department of energy – Energy efficiency and
Laboratory in 1994. And at the end of the nineties, renewable energy
the total wordwide installed photovoltaic power 9.The need project Po box 10101,MANASSAA,VA
reached 1 GigaWatt in 1999. 20108,secondary energy infobook
A PV solar cell with 32.3% conversion efficiency 10.”Photovoltaic power generation” – Prepared by
was developed by Spectrolab, Inc. and the National Thomas penick and Bill Louk,december 4,1998
Renewable Energy Laboratory in 1999. By
combining three PV materials into a single solar cell
such high conversion efficiency could be achieved. REVIEW PAPER PUBLISHED ON : 04/04/2010
When cell received sunlight concentrated to 50 times
normal, it performed most efficiently. Such cell is
mounted in a device that uses lenses or mirrors to
concentrate sunlight onto the cell for its use in
practical applications.Such “concentrator” systems
are mounted on tracking systems that keep them
pointed toward the sun.Thin-film photovoltaic solar
cell with 18.8 percent efficiency was developed by
NREL in 1999.
From 2000 Solar energy entered the era in which
environmental issues and economic issues renewed
the public interest in solar energy.It is the era in
which the solar market has transformed from a local
market to a global market.In the new millennium
Germany took the lead with their progressive feed-in
tariffs policy,leading to a large national solar market
and industry.
0.5-square-meter thin-film solar module with 10.8 %
conversion efficiency and 0.9-square-meter solar
module with 10.6% conversion efficiency and a
power output of 91.5 watts were developed by BP
solarex in 2000 first time in the world.
Spheral solar technology based on tiny silicon beads
bonded between two sheets of aluminum foil
promises lower costs due to its greatly reduced use of
silicon relative to conventional multicrystalline

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