History, Design, and Applications Solar Hot Water Systems Ben Gravely - Holocene Technologies Blog A (very) Brief History of Solar Energy Residential & Commercial Solar Examples How it Works Simple Economics

Antoine Lavoisier Solar Furnace Melted Platinum at 3222ºF Brief History

Augustin Mouchet, Paris Exposition, 1878 Solar steam engine pumped 500 gallon per hour Brief History

Clarence Kemp’s Batch Solar Water Heater 1892 The Modern Era Phase 1 - The Beginning we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy - sun, wind and tide.... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. Thomas Edison Conversation between Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone quoted in Uncommon Friends : Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by James Newton, p. 31 First Commercial Solar System in US

The first modern flat plate solar collector invented by William Bailey in 1909 used separate storage tank company was called Day & Night By 1941 there were 60,000 Day & Night solar water heaters in Florida By 1900 there were 1600 solar water heaters in southern California Panoma Valley, CA, 1911 Laundry in FL in the 1930s

California - Cheap natural gas ended the solar era by 1920 The end of Phase I Energy Prices declined steadily until the 1970s And Then Florida - Cheap electricity after WWII ended the solar era in Florida by 1950

1973 & 1979 Gas Lines Two oil embargos occurred - in 1973 and 1979 US energy security was quickly destroyed

1979 Solar System on White House “A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” “It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.” Pres. Jimmy Carter The Modern Era - Phase II - Camelot “The moral equivalent of war” Pres. Jimmy Carter Goals Energy independence Reduce Pollution of fossil fuels Long term energy planning Created the Dept of Energy Started renewable energy incentives Energy Independence