Solar History Page 2

In 1891 Clarence Kemp introduced the first commercial solar hot water system into the market and by the turn of the century thousands  were in use. The Climax water heater was an instant success due to its low cost and its simplicity and reliable nature of a header tank and gravity feed. Early gas heaters were very unreliable at the time and contributed to it's success.
Good as it was one problem with the climax was its therma efficiency. This was greatly improved in 1909 by William Bailey of the "Day and Night" water heater Co. he introduced the first flat plate collector consisting a parallel grid of copper pipes welded to an absorber plate.Hot water from the collector thermosyphoned up to insulated storage tank.

Bailey refined the "Day and Night" system in 1913 by isolating the solar collector circuit from the mains and filling it with anti-freeze. A heat exchanger coil in the storage tank transferred thermal energy from the solar
circuit to the water in the tank. These improvements prevented
damage to the collector from freezing and blockages due to calcium deposits in hard water areas. His brilliant design is basically unchanged to this day, despite the "hype" of modern manufacturers.

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1913 also saw the installation of the first large scale solar pumping station by Frank
Shuman's "Sun Power Co" in Egypt. Multiple rows of tracking parabolic reflectors with long, glass sleeved boilers along their focal planes, produced hot water which flowed into a large insulated storage tank which gave night time running capability.

 The tank operated at sub-atmospheric pressure, enab­ling copious amounts of steam to be produc­ed well below normal boiling point. A spec­ial low pressure steam engine pumped over 360'000 gallons of water per hour for irri­gation purposes. This machine far surpassed the performance of previously recorded solar engines. Its efficiency was 40%.

By 1900 many European nations had introduced public health and town planning
laws ensuring sun rights for all citizens.
in the inter-war years architects experimented with various forms of structure and orientation and verenfied that the classical Greek formula was correct. The building should be approximatley rectangular, twice as long as it is wide with its axis aligned true east and west allowing for  magnetic deviation. In the southern hemisphere the north facing wall
must be 70-80% glazed with an eave profile that blocks the high summer sun but allows for low winter access to the interior. Windows on other walls should be absolutley minimul and cielings insulated. Adequate thermal mass must be incorporated to stabilize temperature fluctuations and give heat storage capacity.

 
In 1954 Bell Telephone Laboratories unve­iled a vastly improved photo-voltaic cell constructed of mono-crystal silicon. These cells were 6% efficient, compared to 1% for selenium. Even so, at over $100 per watt of generating capacity they were too expensive for practical use, except military and space applications. It was the American space program that provided further impetus for development. The Sun shines continuously in outer space and with no moving parts solar cells were proving to be the most reliable power source yet discovers something of crit­ical importance in a multi million dollar orbiting satellite.
The 60s and 70s were  
ed to more reliable cost effective products, Solar ar.i prices fell to $15 per peak watt.
 
The  1980's saw the break-even point reached betw­een solar power and diesel gensets in rural Aust­ralia. Sun power became a way of life for many in the bush. There were also a number of important solar power stations installed around the world in the 0.5 to 10 megawatt range. Some were photo voltaic, with large numbers of panels mounted on computer controlled trackers. Others used the "power tower" approach whereby a 360 degree field computer controlled heliostats (mirrors) focus onto a boiler furnace atop a central tower to generate super heated steam to run a turbine.

The early 1990's were decisive years. Suburbia itself realized that the pioneering work in coun­try areas and ongoing price reductions meant that energy concious householders anywhere could inst­all their own pollution free, perpetual power plant for around $10'000 and achieve substantial savings in the medium term as well as becoming self sufficient in electricity. Solar tech­nology had reached the point where the major barriers became more of a socio-political nature than technical the general public and most politicians simply unaware of the the wide range of energy options available to them, or the ramifications of a new solar age.

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