The Solar Timeline

You would be surprised to know that solar energy has been harnessed since the 7th century B.C. In the 7th century BC, the sun’s energy was concentrated using magnifying glasses to produce fire and kill ants. It was in the 3rd century BC that the Romans and Greeks harnessed the sun’s energy to light torches by reflecting the sun’s rays using mirrors. Even today, this practice continues to be used for lighting the Olympic torch. Documents from 20 AD explain the use of mirrors in religious ceremonies by the Chinese to light the torches at the temples.

The first solar collector was designed in 1767 by the Horace de Saussure, a Swiss inventor. It was this design that was later adopted by Sir John Herschel to cook food on his South African expedition in 1837. Further developments began around 1873 when the photo conductivity of Selenium was discovered by Willoughby Smith.

The first commercial solar water heater in the world was patented by Clarence Kemp in 1891 but it was only in 1982 that the solar water heater was manufactured domestically in Sri Lanka. While these developments occurred, Einstein’s research paper on photoelectric effect was published in 1905. It was at the same time that he had published his paper on the theory of relativity.

The first photo-voltaic cell was designed in 1954 by Calvin Fuller David Chapin and Gerald Pearson. This was capable of converting sunlight into electrical energy. 1963 -Solar cells were successfully mass- manufactured and in 1976 Calculators with dual property, that used both batteries and tiny photo-voltaic cells to power the device were released into the market. However, it wasn’t only in 1994 that the first residential roof top solar cell was commercialized.

Sri Lanka has only begun taking its first steps towards solar energy. Hambantota Solar Power Station (Buruthakanda Solar Park) became the first commercial solar power plant to harness solar energy in Sri Lanka in 2012. With the recent introduction (2016) of Surya Bala Sangramaya’s ADMO Solar became the first company in the country to adopt and implement Net Accounting System, a program through which a consumer gets paid for the additional energy  that gets redirected to the national grid through net metering.