Page 21 - ISES SWC50

1991 Denver, USA 2017 Abu Dhabi, UAE

1993 Budapest, Hungary 2019 Santiago, Chile
1995 Harare, Zimbabwe

ISES Solar Energy Museum – Past, Present and Future
ISES has developed the Museum in order to provide an online location where the history as well as the visions
of ISES and the solar industry, as told through stories, photos and videos, is readily accessible to people
worldwide. In the museum research institutes, companies and individuals tell their stories about how they
helped develop an industry that has grown from watts to gigawatts virtually through their individual displays.
The online museum allows the visitor to “enter” a lobby and either read a map guide and go straight to a
particular section, or “walk” through the museum. The museum will be permanent and like all museums will
have updated exhibitions. ISES sees the museum as the legacy that continues from the SWC50 celebration.

Booklet: ISES The Century of Solar - Stories and Vision
Many in-depth books have been written on solar over the years some of which have included the history of
solar and its growth. This commemorative booklet has not been written to compete with any of those well
researched and in-depth books. Rather, this booklet provides a brief overview of what has happened in the
past and provides a vision of what is required to reach the 100% renewable energy world.

The chapters of the booklet are broken into periods of time, starting with pre 1950’s followed by chapters on
each decade from the 1950’s through to the last decade (2010-2019). Each chapter highlights the significant
events for ISES and the various technologies and their applications within each decade, particularly showing
the growth of some of the technology sectors. However, unlike other books where these are written in
paragraphs this booklet provides the information as dot points and in tables and graphs. This format allows
the reader to obtain a quick overview of what has happened in this exciting industry.

The Renewable Energy Pioneers
ISES recognises that without the efforts of individual researchers, system designers, system installers,
business leaders, policy makers and those within the donor community, the renewable energy industry would
not have grown from watts to Gigawatts in the last 50 years. To acknowledge these efforts the booklet
includes pioneers. In April 2020 ISES issued a call for submissions of the names, along with photos and brief
300-word bios, of individuals covering the following two categories:
1. Research Pioneers: Individuals who started their research in 1995 or earlier.
2. Industry Pioneers: Individuals who actively started working in or with the industry in 1995 or earlier.
In addition, the SWC50 organising committees reached out to many other pioneers described in a wide
variety of publications and also contacted many industry associations and others to attempt to identify as
many pioneers as possible. These pioneers are included by name, and with bios and photos where available.
This is ISES’ way of acknowledging the many people who have made this industry what it is today. ISES
and the SWC50 organising committees recognize that those who are listed in this booklet are really just a
snapshot of the 1000s who did contribute prior to 1995.

Why 1995 as a cut-off date?
The SWC50 committee arbitrarily chose 1995 since this was 25 years after the first Congress and 25
years before SWC50. However, when the actual kW and KWh installed is studied the main growth in the
renewable energy industry growth has occurred since 1995. The number of people working in the industry
has grown significantly over the last 25 years. ISES appreciates that there have been other individuals who
have contributed greatly to the growth of this industry since 1995, and their contributions are acknowledged
in the relevant chapters in this booklet. As with the pioneers, those acknowledged are a snapshot of the many
thousands who have contributed to the growth of solar.

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