The History of Solar Energy, Going Back to 4,000 B.C.

See how far we’ve come with solar technology – from how huts were built in Ancient China to the invention of the photovoltaic cell – it’s all here in this infographic.

Harvesting the power of the sun has been a human endeavor since the beginning of civilization.

After all, the sun puts out 3.8 x 10^26 watts of power, and NASA scientists estimate that even capturing 0.0001% of what hits the earth would be enough to service all of our current energy needs.

Today, we’re obviously not there – but we’re making substantial progress. Solar cells are cheaper than ever before, and solar is finally getting queued up as a part of the future energy supply mix.