The use of the sun for energy is steeped in solar power history. Although the collection and use we see today was not developed until the late 19th century, ancient societies used it for warmth and as a growing tool.
Greeks, Romans, and Native Americans all used the sun for their heating and even for the growing of plants. Glass windows were used by Romans because they understood the benefits of catching sun through glass and that the heat did not escape easily.
The Romans took it a step further than heating for their homes and made crude greenhouses in which to collect the sun to grow plants and vegetables more quickly. It extended their growing season and gave them larger crops.
The pueblos and other hillside dwellings were often built by Native American and Greeks facing the sun so they could collect the warmth to heat their houses, then at night the air would cool and they had fresh heat that would enter in the morning.
Greeks used the sun in much the same way, although they did not get the idea from each other. Societies independently figured out that the sun was a useful resource that should not be wasted.
That was the extent of the use of the sun for several hundred more years. In the late 1700′s a man named Horace de Saussare designed a device that collects sunlight. The collector cone gathered the sun to boil ammonia. The result was refrigerant. Scientists were enthralled with this new idea all the way throughout the 1800′s.
Steam engines were developed next, but were not particularly efficient. They were expensive to run and difficult to keep running once they were started. There was still great potential in the sun’s power, though, so experimentation continued and a solar cell was invented in the 1800′s, beginning the practical solar power history.
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