Solar power is energy from the sun.

The primary forms of solar energy are heat and light. Sunlight and heat undergo many transformations in the environment.

Some of these transformations produce effects such  as photosynthesis, the Gulf Stream and the hydrologic cycle.

Other transformations result in renewable energies such as biomass, wind and waves.

Solar energy also broadly describes technologies that utilize sunlight.

These technologies appear in the architecture of the Greeks, Native Americans and Chinese who warmed their buildings by orienting them toward the sun. Solar energy was also used by Medieval European farmers who used thermal mass and elaborate field orientation to increase crop yields during the Little Ice Age.

The term solar power specifically describes technologies that convert sunlight into electricity or mechanical power.

In 1865, the French engineer Auguste Mouchout successfully powered a steam engine with sunlight. This is the first known example of a solar powered mechanical device.

Over the next 50 years inventors such as John Ericsson, Charles Tellier and Frank Shuman developed solar powered devices for irrigation, refrigeration and locomotion.

In 1954, researchers at Bell Laboratories developed a solar cell capable of converting light into electricity via the photovoltaic effect.

This breakthrough marked a fundamental change in how power is generated. Since then solar cells have progressed from early cells priced at $1500 per watt to modern cells which can cost less than $3 per watt.

The utilization of solar energy spans from traditional technologies that provide food, heat and light to electricity which is uniquely modern.

The diversity of form and long history of solar energy are manifest in a wide variety of applications.

These include:

• Heat (hot water, building heat, cooking, process heat)
• Lighting (daylighting, hybrid lighting, daylight savings time)
• Electricity generation (photovoltaics, heat engines)
• Transportation (solar car, solar plane, solar boat)
• Desalination
• Biomass (wood, biofuel)

This section includes dedicated SOLAR sector information and links. Including:

  NEWS
  WIND TECHNOLOGY
  ENVIRONMENT
 FEATURED PRODUCTS
 WIND EVENTS