Talk:Timeline of solar cells

Used as a reference in a news article
This article was used as a reference in this CNET article. -- Kjkolb 10:27, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Photograph of World's First Rooftop Photovoltaic Solar Array
People I know are jawdropped when they see a photograph from the year 1884 of a rooftop solar array (Charles Fritts selenium solar cells).

Deep within archives, this photograph is very hard to find and not very famous (much like Charles Babbage was nearly forgotten & little known until after ENAIC was computer built, then he was recognized as prescient). The most prominent website displaying this 1884 photograph is the CleanTechnica website (linked).

This fascinating photograph, resembles actual modern photovoltaic panels, but this is a full 70 years before Bell Labs' invention. Although it was less than 1% efficient, this actual multi-panel selenium photovoltaic solar array installation was able to successfully light up one small carbon-filament light bulb.

Dismissed as being too inefficient (1%) and too expensive, this still resembles a modern solar array that you see on rooftops. It would appear to surmise, that almost anybody from year 2015 who is theoretically time-machined back to this 1884 photograph, would instantly recognize it as a solar panel, with the electric wiring connected an array of glossy panels sitting on top of a sunlit rooftop. Likewise, if Charles Fritts was temporarily brought here by theoretical time machine (H.G. Wells!) to one of the world's new near-gigawatt-league solar farms -- he would still instantly recognize the distant derivative of his invention -- with total astonishment at today's massive scale and importance.

Photograph from Year 1884 of Charles Fritt's rooftop photovoltaic solar array

The 1884 panels are actually so similar-looking to modern panels -- and even in scientific principles -- more similar than a Thomas edison carbon-filament bulb versus a modern LED bulb. The 1884 panel and today's modern panels are based the same principles of direct sun-to-electricity via photovoltaic/semiconductor operation -- actual photovoltaic effect, not the photoelectric effect.

Given today's gigawatt solar farms, and solar's importance today, I think this photograph needs to be made MUCH more well known.

We must, by our responsibility as historians, track down the original source of this probably public-domain photograph, and bring it henceforth, to Wikipedia Commons, stat -- I suspect it is such a prescient-looking photograph that belongs in multiple solar history articles on Wikipedia. Many books cite this 1884 rooftop solar installation, but I am having difficulty tracing the source of this photograph. Does anyone know which archives this photograph may be originally stored in?

Chronicles
This article is a long list of dates, but this is not history.

We really need to have a true history of solar power, with the ideas, the designs, the detailed process of work of the most important researchers in the field. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.96.32.62 (talk) 10:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Tesla
The Tesla device used the photoelectric effect, not the photovoltaic effect. — Omegatron 21:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Years later, someone has finally got round to removing the crackpottery. Remember, kids, just because you have a patent for something, doesn't mean it works (or has any basis in reality). I wonder if you can still patent things that can't work today. Patent examiners in the old days must have been much more generous. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Efficiencies
Under what conditions are the efficiencies measured? It should be consistent for any quoted efficiency on the same page. — Omegatron 21:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It isn't possible to make them all entirely consistent on an historical timeline. Measurement standards have changed over the years, for one thing: The standard used for terrestrial cells today is based on characterization of the Earth's atmopshere in 1970s and '80s, and was revised slightly in (I think) 2005. Conditions can also differ depending on the cell's intended use. Cells used in space are measured using the solar spectrum as it exists in space, while terrestrial cells are measured under a solar spectrum that accounts for the effects of the Earth's atmosphere (efficiencies measured under space conditions are a bit lower than those measured under terrestrial conditions). Concentrator cells are measured under concentrated light with a spectrum that excludes light scattered by the atmosphere, since the optics on those cells reject all but the direct component of the incident light.--Squirmymcphee 17:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Timeline of photovoltaics
Agree, merge. Greenman 14:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge was a good idea, but wouldn't Timeline of photovoltaics be a better title? The entries for recent years contain much that is around economics and deployment rather than the science of the cells themselves. Itsmejudith 15:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree: Timeline of photovoltaics would be a better title. Photovoltaics is a more general term that includes solar cells, modules, and whole systems. This title would be more descriptive of the recent entries. Aasmusko (talk) 12:52, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

PV production 1976-1994
This source doesn't completely agree with numbers here, here  or  but the numbers are close and it lists data for many more years than any of these sources. The yearly production numbers from 81-94 are 5,9,15,17.5,19,21,25,31.5,38,43,48,54,56,61. And the data is given specifically in 1994 dollars which helps. Mrshaba 14:20, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

PV production and prices
Not sure where to post this message so it's going in several places. The PV articles would be greatly enhanced if we could develope a graph showing the historic prices for PV. The image below shows how the prices should be both real and inflation adjusted. As a companion to the price graph we also need a production graph. Mrshaba 09:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Records
If an efficiency record of 42.8% was achieved on 7/30/2007, how can 40.8% be a new world record on 8/13/2008?&mdash;RJH (talk) 22:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. (59.167.38.117 (talk) 12:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

Timeline 1888 Patent for Edward Weston
I just read the patent, and in my opininion, it does not deal with an invention employing similar processes (i.e. generation of charge carriers via photoelectric effect) as todays solar-cells, but instead uses the heat gradient induced by focussed sunlight to construct something like a thermocouple. Therefore I don't know whether it is appropriate to put this in the article at all. Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.130.244.37 (talk) 00:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Stanford Ovshinsky
why is O vshinsky's major contribution ignored. link to Stanford R Ovshinsky — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.72.76.156 (talk) 00:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

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Edit: 1878 not solar cells topic
This entrance was created to discuss the irrelevance of the entry on 1878 in this timeline. Searched the work of Augustin Mouchot and he worked on heat collectors which aren't photovoltaic cells nor their obbey the photovoltaic effect.