Solar technology was first discovered by French scientist Antione Cesar Bequerel in 1839, when he discovered that shining a light on certain chemical solutions could produce an electric current.

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Before efficient solar cells could be made, a deeper understanding of the underlying principles was needed. This was provided by, amongst others, Einstein and Schottky in the early twentieth century. In 1941 the first silicon solar cell was created by the American Russell Ohl.

In 1954 a cell was made by Chapin, Pearson and Fuller which converted 6% of sunlight falling onto it into electricity. These types of cell provided an economical and reliable way of powering satellites and were first used for this purpose in 1958. In the 1950's and 60's solar cells were still considered by most as a futuristic technology only appropriate for special applications. This was mainly due to their high cost.

People became slightly more interested in them during the oil crises of the 1970's. Over the past few decades, new technology has meant that solar cells now have much greater conversion efficiencies and are much more cost effective. Today's cells have an efficiency of about 18%. Today's solar cells have a cost of about US$ 3 per watt of output compared to early cells which had a cost of about US$2000 per watt of output.