The solar energy industry traces its roots to nineteenth century scientific discoveries, beginning with the photovoltaic effect identified by Edmond Becquerel in 1839 and early selenium based cells in the late 1800s.

It did not become a modern commercial sector until Bell Labs created the first practical silicon solar cell in 1954, which initially found high value in space applications.

Interest and investment expanded sharply during the energy crises of the 1970s, when governments funded research and demonstration projects, leading to steady improvements in cell efficiency, durability, and manufacturing.

Over the next decades, supportive policies such as rooftop incentives and large scale procurement helped markets mature, with major acceleration in the 2000s as countries introduced feed in style programs and global supply chains expanded.

By the 2010s and early 2020s, massive manufacturing scale, especially in Asia, and technological advances in crystalline silicon and thin film methods drove costs down dramatically, making solar one of the most competitive sources of new electricity in many regions and shifting the industry from niche and subsidized to mainstream, with growing emphasis on grid integration, storage pairing, and resilient distributed energy systems.

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