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1970s
With help from Exxon Corporation, Dr. Elliot Berman designs a significantly less costly solar cell, bringing the price down from $100 per watt to $20 per watt. Solar cells begin powering navigation warning lights and horns on offshore gas and oil rigs, lighthouses, and railroad crossings. Domestic solar applications are considered good alternatives in remote areas where utility-grid connections are too costly.
1972
French workers install a cadmium sulphide photovoltaic system at a village school in Niger.
The Institute of Energy Conversion is established at the University of Delaware to do research and development on thin-film photovoltaic and solar thermal systems, becoming the world's first laboratory dedicated to PV R&D.
1973
The University of Delaware builds "Solar One," a PV/thermal hybrid system. Roof-integrated arrays feed surplus power through a special meter to the utility during the day; power is purchased from the utility at night. In addition to providing electricity, the arrays are like flat-plate thermal collectors; fans blow warm air from over the array to heat storage bins.
1976
The NASA Lewis Research Center starts installing the first of 83 photovoltaic power systems on every continent except Australia. They provide power for vaccine refrigeration, room lighting, medical clinic lighting, telecommunications, water pumping, grain milling, and classroom television. The project takes place from 1976 to 1985 and then from 1992 to completion in 1995.
David Carlson and Christopher Wronski of RCA Laboratories produce the first amorphous silicon photovoltaic cells, which could be less expensive to manufacture than crystalline silicon devices.
1977
In July, the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, a predecessor of the U.S. Department of Energy, launches the Solar Energy Research Institute, a federal facility dedicated to finding and improving ways to harness and use energy from the sun.
Total photovoltaic manufacturing production exceeds 500 kilowatts; 1 kilowatt is enough power to light about ten 100-watt light bulbs.
1978
NASA's Lewis Research Center installs a 3.5-kilowatt photovoltaic system on the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona—the world's first village PV system. It provides power for water pumping and residential electricity in 15 homes until 1983, when grid power reaches the village. The PV system is then dedicated to pumping water from a community well.
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