Solarex “Solar Energizer” solar panel

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.

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