The History of Solar and Wind Power

Though you may be surprised to know this, renewable energy in the form of wind turbines and solar panels has been around for over 100 years! It’s true, these green energy technologies are just now coming into their own as they reach grid parity (when the installed cost is similar to conventional fossil fuel energies), but the technologies are much older than you might think.

History of solar energy

Since there are so many types of solar energy – from solar electricity to solar thermal to passive solar – the history for this green energy is longer than you might expect. With passive solar and solar heating the most aged forms of solar renewables, the history for this clean energy dates back several hundred years.

• 1767: Horace de Saussure of Switzerland builds first solar collector which is later used as a solar cooker by Sir John Herschel on his South African expedition.
• 1816: Robert Stirling, a Scot, files a patent for an economizer, which is a type of solar thermal system.
• 1839: Young Frenchman, Edmund Becquerel, discovers the photovoltaic effect.
• 1860: Auguste Mouchout of France converts solar radiation into mechanical power. He also proposed solar-powered steam engines.
• 1876: Scientists Adams and Ay learn that they could produce electricity by exposing selenium to light.
• 1883: Charles Fritts of the US builds the first solar cell made of selenium wafers, efficiency of 1%.
• 1884: First parabolic solar trough was constructed by John Ericsson of the US.
• 1891: The first commercial solar water heater is patented by American Clarence Kemp.
• 1904: Einstein publishes a paper on the photoelectric effect.
• 1950: The National Historic Register’s building was built, complete with solar heating.
• 1955: The first silicon PV commercial licenses were sold by Western Electric.
• 1964: The first Nimbus spacecraft powered by a photovoltaic array is launched by NASA.
• 1973: “Solar One” was constructed on the roof of a University of Delaware building to produce both electricity through photovoltaic technology and heat through a solar thermal system.
• 1976: First amorphous silicon photovoltaic cells are fabricated at RCA Laboratories.
• 1977: The Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) was formed as a national laboratory for research into solar technologies. It would later become the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
• 1980: ARCO Solar completes construction on modules that will produce more than 1 megawatt of solar photovoltaic electric capacity.
• 1981: First solar-powered aircraft if built by Paul MacCready called the Solar Challenger.
• 1982: The first solar-powered car is driven in Australia – the Quiet Achiever.
• 1992: A thin film solar cell is developed at the University of South Florida.
• 1993: First grid-supported solar system is brought online in Kerman, California.
• 1999: Worldwide installed solar capacity exceeds 1,000 megawatts.
• 2000: Solar panels are installed at the International Space Station in space.
• 2001: PowerLIght Corporation builds the world’s largest hybrid wind-solar energy system in Hawaii.
• 2004: One Million Solar Roofs campaign in California gets underway.
• 2007: The Vatican begins installing solar on some of its buildings.
• 2008: Global installed wind capacity exceeds 5.95 gigawatts.
• 2010: President Barack Obama adds more solar panels and a solar water heating system to the White House.

History of wind power

The history of wind goes back much, much farther than solar. In fact, it’s really one of the oldest forms of renewable energy on the planet.

• 3200 BC: Ancient Egyptians used sails to propel boats forward – the first instance of harnessing the power of the wind.
• 600s: The Persians started to use windmills to grind grain.
• 1300s: Wind power was being used by the Dutch to pump water from flooded fields.
• 1887: Electricity is produced for the first time via a windmill in Glasgow Scotland and in Ohio, USA.
• 1890s: Wind turbines are tested and installed in rural Denmark to bring electricity to rural populations.
• 1927: The Jacobs Wind Factory opens in Minneapolis producing generators for farms to use for lighting and charging batteries.
• 1930s: Small wind turbines are installed through rural US to provide power to farms.
• 1920: The world’s first wind turbine on a vertical axis is invented.
• 1980s: Focus on large-scale wind turbines takes the focus away from small-scale turbines, encouraging the growth of wind farms that are connected to the utility grid. First wind farm is established in New Hampshire, USA.
• 1991: The first offshore wind farm is brought online in Denmark.
• 2001: Worldwide installed wind capacity hits 1,500 megawatts.
• 2004: Global wind capacity goes beyond 39,000 megawatts.
• 2006: The US Department of Energy budgets $500 million for wind subsidies, which is 10 times more than that available in 1978.
• 2007: Wind power provides 5% of all renewable energy in the US, which is enough to power 2.5 million homes.
• 2008: Rock Port, Missouri begins to receive 100% of its power from wind energy – the first US city to do so.