History of contribution of photovoltaic cells to telecommunications

Since 1959 Sharp Corporation has been devoted to commercializing photovoltaic-cells (PV-cells) for public, industrial, and residential applications. The cumulative production volume reached to 2GW in 2007 for the first time in the world, and the annual production capacity grew to 710MW in 2009. The present article outlines Sharp's history of commercializing PV-cells, focusing on their applications to terrestrial and space telecommunications, on the occasion of having received the IEEE Milestone for commercialization and industrialization of PV-cells in April 2010.