Page 29 - ISES SWC50

1860
• Starting in 1860, the French mathematics professor Augustin Mouchot constructed a series of solar water
heaters made of reflectors in various shapes and water-flowing cylindrical absorbers made of blackened
copper. Mouchot used these devices partly as solar stoves, partly as distillation apparatus for brandy and
partly to produce steam to drive motors and pumps.

1891
• Clarence Kemp developed the Climax Solar Water Heater that was marketed on the West Coast of the
USA.

1904
• A Portuguese priest, Manuel António Gomes (akaFather Himalaya) wins the first prize at the St. Louis
World fair with its Pyrheliophor, capable of reaching 3 800 degrees Celsius. He started his experiments
inspired by the work of Augustin Mouchot,. His goal was to reach temperatures able to melt metals and
rocks, as part of his experiments on fertilisation of soils and nitrogen compounds. His first experiments
were carried out in the French Pyrenees and he continued his work in different countries, before moving to
the United States of America to demonstrate his solar furnace

1909
• In the summer of 1909, in a little outdoor shop in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia, an engineer named
William J. Bailey began selling a solar water heater that eventually revolutionized the industry. It supplied
solar-heated water not only while the sun was shining but for hours after dark and the following morning
as well— hence its name, the Day and Night.

1936
• In Australia G Bates produced a Solar water heater for use in Queensland Australia inspired by a design of
Dr H W Kerr and with input from Roger Morse. The results were “gratifying”.

1942
• Professor Hoyt Hottel and his graduate student Byron Woertz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) laid the foundation for the analysis of active solar energy systems with their classic paper on solar
collectors

1943
• George Löf designed an early flat-plate solar heating unit and installed it on the roof of his house in Boulder,
Colorado. It was called the “first solar-heated home” in the United States.

4.3 CSP Pre 1950
• Dositheius, a mathematician in the 3 century, observed that solar rays bouncing off a parabolic mirror are
rd
focused on a point and can produce high temperatures.

Around 1515
• Leonardo da Vinci developed drawings for industrial applications of solar energy using parabolic mirrors.

1878
• The largest solar machine, which Mouchot constructed for the 1878 World Fair in Paris, had a conical
reflector five meters in diameter - enough to drive a pump that could transport around 2,000 liters of water
per hour, and enough to even produce ice. By coupling his apparatus to a refrigerating machine, which the
French engineer Ferdinand Carré had already designed in the 1850s, Mouchot succeeded in creating the
first surviving example of solar cooling.
1913
• Financially supported by a group of British investors, the American Frank Shuman built a power plant from
1913 onwards in the then British protectorate of Egypt. It consisted of five elongated parabolic trough
collectors that reflected solar heat onto a zinc pipe suspended in its focal point and heated water in it.

ISES SWC50 - The Century of Solar-Stories and Visions | 11