History of Solar Power

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  Contrary to popular belief, solar energy has been in existence since the ancient Egyptians who built houses that stored sunlight and heat during the day and released it at night acting as a passive heating system.  It wasn’t until 1767 that the Swiss scientist Horace de Saussare built the world’s first solar panel.  This spawned an entirely new field of study for other scientists and inventors such as Clarence Kemp, who is the renowned father of American solar energy.  In 1891 he created and installed the first patented solar water heater by allowing heat to be absorbed into metal boxes subsequently used to heat  water. Almost a decade later this revolutionary invention was surpassed by William Baily, who invented a solar panel with copper coils and an insulated storage unit in 1908.  This invention was of paramount significance as the copper coils limited the amount of water being exposed to the sun at any moment and hence the water heated faster and had the ability to stay heated for a longer period of time.   In the mid-1900’s a renewed interest in solar power was generated in the United States as the harmful effects of fossil fuels were exposed.  (Perlin, 2005) Although there were approximately 1.2 million homes in the United States using solar energy, natural gas and other fossil fuels are still the leading competitors to solar energy in the national and world markets.

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