Page 159 - ISES SWC50

1981
• Dr. Paul MacCready (founder of AeroVironment in 1971 ) along with support from other engineers
at AeroVironment designed the solar-powered aircraft—the “Solar Challenger”. On July 7th the
“SolarChallenger” flew from France to England across the English Channel. The aircraft had over 16,000
solar cells mounted on its wings, which produced 3,000 watts of power.
• Antonio Luque started Isofoton and it is the first company to mass-produce bifacial solar cells based on
the work undertaken by Antonio Luque et al. at the Institute of Solar Energy in Madrid.
• Photowatt (France) was formed by SAFT (Battery division of Compagnie Generale d”Electricite (CGE) and
oil company ELF (Societe Nationale Elf Acquitaine).
• Philips merged its PV activities with Photowatt.
• NASA LeRC built PV systems for vaccine refrigerator power and by 1984 had supplied systems to 30
locations around the globe.
• A system with peak power of 90.4 kW, with modules produced by Solar Power Corporation, was built in
Square Shopping Centre in Lovington, New Mexico and a similar system was built for Beverly High School
in Beverly, Massachusetts.
• A seawater desalination system with 10.8 kW peak power was built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia the
same year.
• Helios Technology was established in Italy.
• BP acquires 50% of Lucas Energy Systems and Lucas BP Solar is formed.
• Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (F-ISE) was founded by Adolf Goetzberger as part of
Fraunhofer Society.

1982
• The first, photovoltaic megawatt-scale power station went on-line in Hisperia, California. It had a
1-megawatt capacity system, developed by ARCO Solar, with modules on 108 dual-axis trackers.
• Australian Hans Tholstrup (and support driver Larry Perkins) drove a solar-powered car - the QuietAchiever
– 4000 Kms between Perth and Sydney in 20 days. Tholstrup was the founder of the “World Solar
Challenge” in Australia, considered the world championship of solar car racing.
• Volkswagen in Germany began testing photovoltaic arrays mounted on the roofs of Dasher station wagons,
generating 160 watts for the ignition system.
• Kyocera Corp was the first manufacturer in the world to mass-produce Polysilicon solar cells using the
casting method, today’s industry standard.
• Worldwide photovoltaic production exceeded 9.3 megawatts.
• A 200 kW PV array was installed on Solarex’s production premises rooftops in Frederick, Maryland.
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• Pragma founded by AGIP (Petroleum business of Italian oil company ENI) in Nettuno (south of Rome)
under the leadership of Giovanni Simoni.
• Crystalox was established in Oxforshire UK and focussed on the development of equipment for
manufacturing multicrystalline silicon technology.
• PV Energy systems Inc (USA) was established by Paul Maycock and his newsletter PV News was produced
until 2002.

Exact Years Not Known
• Solarvolt was formed in early 1980’s as a joint venture between Motorola and Shell.
• Siemens involvement with PV started in the early 1980’s through its nuclear energy subsidiary Interatom.
• Grundfos, a Danish company who manufacturer quality pumping systems commenced the manufacturing
of solar water pumping systems in the early 1980’s.

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