Edison Township Public Meeting Silver Lake Solar Farm - PSEG

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOLAR ENERGY
60,000 B.C. the first known passive solar house is built of interlocking
mammoth tusks
100 A.D. Greeks and Romans used “burning mirrors” to focus sunlight as
weapons of war to ignite fires and burn sails of enemy war ships
1839 Edmund Becquerel, the French experimental physicist, discovered the
photovoltaic effect while experimenting with an electrolytic cell
1904 Albert Einstein, in his first published scientific paper, explains the
photovoltaic effect by describing light in terms of “Quanta” he called “photons”.
This laid part of the foundation for Quantum Theory.
1921 Albert Einstein wins the Nobel Prize for his theory explaining photovoltaics
1958 Vanguard I, the first PV-powered satellite, is launched
1973 The Terrestrial solar industry is born at a conference in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
2003 Worldwide production capacity for Photovoltaics surpasses 500
Megawatts per year, growing at a 35% per year pace. Grid connected
PV grows at a rate of 100% per year.