The history of solar energy stretches back over 2,000 years to the Greek and Roman ages. Hey, here are the first people to actually ay their houses to make maximum usage of the energy, for both light and heat. The famous  Greek philosopher Socrates,  in history’s first recorded writing on renewable solar energy concerning the power of the sun when he commented that all houses should be faced south so that they get the most sun in the winter.

The Roman aristocracy took it a step further when they made the first historical use of glass window panes on the south-facing aspects of the villas, the enormous cost meant that only the richest could do this. Two ancient civilizations, both suffering from what might be thought of as a contemporary problem, that of energy shortages, in this instance, the was not sufficient wood for everyone, wood being the dominant source of heat.

Following the fall of the Roman Empire, there was no thought given to solar energy throughout the Dark Ages.

Until well into the 1800’s it was generally assumed that the world’s supply of carbon based fuels was so huge that it would be impossible to use it all, especially as new sources were regularly being found  In 1861, Auguste Mouchet buil a steam engine that was heated entirely by the sun,; however, the machine was expensive to maintain, and coal prices were fallin,g so he could not secure backing for more development. He then went on to make a study of the burgeoning demands of industry and stated that industry’s demands for coal would soon deplete reserves, and then what would happen?

There continued to be an interest in solar power and all things electric from then on. An interesting fact is that although we think of battery-powered vehicles as cutting-edge technology, up till around 1905, there was a large proportion of electric cars on the road till this decade. Their development was dropped because battery technology was not able to economically overcome the enormous weight of the batteries themselves. The World speed record o 1905 had more electric cars en red than gasoline engine car, it as won by a gasoline powered car w h a winning speed   60  miles per hour, that and the decreasing price of gas prevented commercial search ll oil crisis he 1970’s refocused attention on solar and other renewable types of energy, this mostly gs the history of solar energy up to the present day .

The interest in solar power, up til the 1950s ′195diminishedhed to scientific research; in fact, the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics was given to Albert Einstein for his research into the principle of photoelectric effects on electrical generation. However, it stayed mostly a scientific research project until  1953 when Bell Laboratories created a silicon-based solar cell capable of producing some electricity; however, following 3  years of development, it still cost sixty times as much to generate a watt of electric energy, making use of solar as opposed to using fossil fuels. So research was put on the back burner till the oil crises of the 11970s

World leaders suddenly had to wake up to a world where the oil prices doubled overnight so hugh investment was ploughed into the development of more energy efficient solar cells and two decades later in the 1990’s we had efficient residential photovoltaic cells, but by then the oil crisiswas long gone and gas was again inexpensive nd plentiful but for how long?