Interesting Solar Energy Facts

It's truly important for all people to learn a few standard solar energy facts to ensure that they can truly appreciate the entire potential and various fields of applications for this plentiful energy supply. Solar power is definitely the most ecologically friendly and most desirable of all alternative energy resources. Presently yearly worldwide energy usage is around approximately 550 exajoules (523 Quadrillion BTUs) per year. Every year the earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land masses receive approximately 3,850,000 exajoules of energy from the sun's rays. Once this is taken into account anyone should be able to start to grasp precisely why the solar energy industry is eagerly working to improve processes to harness solar power. The Desertec foundation theorizes that covering just 1% of desert environments around the world with solar PV panels could very well power up the entire planet.

Listed below is a brief background of historical solar energy facts:

- The use of solar power by humankind is not new; countless ancient civilizations have utilized it in one form or another.

- Leonardo da Vinci was actually among the 1st modern thinkers to conceive industrial usage of solar energy to heat up water.

- The French scientist Edmond Becquerel observed the photovoltaic effect while experimenting with electrolytic cells in 1839.

- In 1894, Clarence Kemp, an inventor filed and obtained a patent for the design of the world's 1st solar-powered water heater.

- The world's 1st solar thermal power station was built by Frank Shuman in 1913.The station that was situated in Egypt utilized parabolic trough-shaped mirrors to be able to heat water in boilers to drive a 65 horsepower engine. The engine pumped nearly 6,000 gallons of water each minute from the Nile River to adjacent crops.

- The first modern photovoltaic (PV) solar cell was designed at Bell Laboratories in the year 1954.