Who invented the first solar powered house?

Mária Telkes, a Hungarian-born American physical chemist and biophysicist invented the first solar powered house.

Together with American architect Eleanor Raymond, Mária Telkes designed and constructed the world’s first modern residence heated with solar energy. The house was built in Dover, Massachusetts, in 1948.

The system was designed so that Glauber’s salt would melt in the sun, trap the heat and then release it as it cooled and hardened.

The system relied on sunlight passing through glass windows to heat the air inside the glass.

This heated air was then forced through a metal sheet and into another air space. Fans then moved the air to a salt-filled storage compartment (sodium sulfate).

These compartments were located between the walls and were responsible for heating the house as the salt cooled.

For the first two years, the house was a huge success, receiving a lot of attention and attracting a lot of people. Popular Science hailed it as possibly more scientifically significant than the atomic bomb.