The Story of Solar Power Systems
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by: JaredSanders | Total views: 27 | Word Count: 519
The solar panel of today has a long history of development. It was already known as early as 150 years ago that it is possible to generate electricity from sunlight. When talking about who invented solar panels, the best way is by doing a historical account.
In 1839, a French physicist A. E. Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. He noted that some materials generated an electric charge when they were exposed to light. This phenomenon is the basis for how most panels work. It was after 44 years in 1883 that the phenomenon was observed in the first photovoltaic cell that was made by Charles Fritts.
The first cell that was developed by Fritts was made of selenium that had a thin coating of gold. Because selenium is not a very effective material, it was able to convert only one per cent of sunlight into electricity. This poor conversion factor made the first cell ineffective for generating electricity from sunlight.
Bell Laboratories found a way to make more efficient photovoltaic cells. However it was expensive to generate electricity from sunlight. The manufacturing process at that time was $250 to generate one watt of electricity. This high cost made this impractical for everyday use.
The space age and the launching of man-made satellites generated a demand for light-weight sources of electricity. At that time photovoltaic cells were the only technology that offered advantageous power to weight ratios. This prompted research for better ways of making such cells so that in the early 1970s it now took only 100 dollars to produce 1 watt of electricity from sunlight.
In the early 1970s some big oil companies were already projecting that in thirty years conventionally fuelled powered power plants would not be capable of generating cheap electricity. They were now researching into alternative source of power which included sunlight. One big oil company that was looking into the promise of such energy was Exxon.
Exxon created Solar Power Corporation or SPC which found ways to optimize the manufacturing of photovoltaic cells. By 1973, a watt of electricity could be made from ten dollars of cells. The man who spearheaded how modern cells are manufactured today was Elliot Berman.
The average cost of generating a watt of electricity from sunlight today is $3.40. When the cost of production becomes competitive with the price of electricity from conventional sources then grid parity is attained. The US government targets 2015 as the year when parity will happen. Expect a shift in alternative ways of electric power generation when this take place. Slowly green power generation will increase its contribution in the nationwide production of electricity.
While the first photovoltaic cell can be attributed to Charles Fritts, the story of who invented solar panels can never be attributed to a single person. This is especially true when modern cells are considered. A wide variety of technologies are used to harness the energy of sunlight for creating usable energy. Each technology used has a list of people who were involved in making it possible. A long list of names would be involved when talking about how modern alternative energy generation from the sun came about.
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