Solarex “Solar Energizer” solar panel
date: label: date made
content: ca 1983
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Solar panels like this “Solar Energizer” required little maintenance and lasted for years making them a good power source for use in remote places. In the 1980s, production from offshore oil platforms surged and provided an unexpected market for solar cells. At first, oil companies used short-lived and heavy batteries to power navigation beacons on the offshore platforms. Crews regularly hauled tons of batteries to the platforms and dumped the used batteries into the ocean—an expensive activity also bad for the environment. Solar panels were expensive but not as expensive as using the batteries. Similar applications on land and at sea provided markets for solar panel producers that pushed research investment, lowered costs, and proved that solar cells were not just for use in space.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Energy & Power
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from John Perlin
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2016.0077.01
label: accession number
content: 2016.0077
label: catalog number
content: 2016.0077.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: photovoltaic panel
label: Object Name
content: solar panel
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 20 in x 10 1/4 in x 1/4 in; 50.8 cm x 26.035 cm x .635 cm