t. In contrast, solar cells could power a satellite for years. Through an unrelenting crusade led by Dr. Ziegler to get the Navy to change its mind, the Navy finally relented and as a compromise, put a dual power system of chemical batteries and silicon solar cells on the Vanguard. Just as Ziegler predicted, the batteries failed after a week or so, but the silicon solar cells kept the Vanguard communicating with Earth for years.
Early 1960s – Bringing Solar Cells Down to Earth
|Hoffman Electronics, the leading manufacturer of silicon solar cells in the 1950s and 1960s, showed a variety of space satellites powered by the sun in a company brochure.|
Despite solar cells’ success in powering both American and Soviet satellites during the 1950s and early 1960s, many at NASA doubted the technology’s ability to power its more ambitious space ventures. The agency viewed solar cells as merely a stopgap measure until nuclear power systems became available. But solar engineers proved the skeptics wrong. They met the increasing power demands by designing ever larger and more powerful solar cell arrays. Nuclear energy, in contrast, never powered more than a handful of satellites. Hence, since the late 1960s, solar cells have become the accepted power source for the world’s satellites. The increasing demand for solar cells in space opened an increasing and relatively large business for those manufacturing solar cells. Even more significantly, our past, present and future application of space would have been impossible if not for solar cells. The telecommunication revolution would never have gotten off the ground if not for solar powered satellites. Unbeknown to most, solar energy has played a crucial role in society’s technological progress over the past forty years.
Early 1970s – The First Mass Earth Market
|Solar cells power navigation warning lights and horns on most off-shore gas and oil rigs throughout the world|
While the use of solar cells in space flourished during the 1960s and early 1970s, down on Earth electricity from the sun seemed as distant as ever. Cost was never a factor for space cells. Manufacturers worried more about size, efficiency and durability: the cost of the launch, and the continuing operation of equipment once in space far outweighed the price of power in space applications. But on Earth, the primary criteria is price per kilowatt hour. Solar-cell technology proved too expensive for terrestrial use until the early 1970s when Dr. Elliot Berman, with financial help from Exxon Corporation, designed a significantly less costly solar cell by using a poorer grade of silicon and packaging the cells with cheaper materials. Bringing the price down from $100 a watt to $20 per watt, solar cells could now compete in situations where people needed electricity distant from power lines. Off-shore oil rigs, for example, required warning lights and horns to prevent ships from running into them but had no power other than toxic, cumbersome, short-lived batteries. Compared to their installation, maintenance and replacement, solar modules proved a bargain. Many gas and oil fields on land but far away from power lines needed small amounts of electricity to combat corrosion in well heads and piping. Once again, electricity from the sun saved the day. Major purchases of solar modules by the gas and oil industry gave the fledgling terrestrial solar cell industry the needed capital to persevere.
1970s – Captain Lomer’s Saga
|Solar cells power the lights of almost every lighthouse run by the U.S. Coast Guard|
It cost the Coast Guard more money to install, maintain and replace the non rechargeable batteries that powered its buoys than the buoys themselves. A brave Coast Guard officer, then Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Lomer, who had training in optics and physics, believed that their replacement by solar modules could save taxpayers millions of dollars and do the job better. But his commander refused to listen. Exasperated by such stonewalling, Lomer finally appealed to higher authorities and got the nod to solarize the Coast Guard’s 