For various reasons, mainly because of the ridiculous inefficiency and high cost, J and I have decided not to generate our own electricity from solar panels. Well, turns out that solar technology needs a lot of
work with small gadgets, too.
When I learned about solar-powered lanterns and flashlights
a couple of years ago, I was all over it. “We can use these in our house
instead of electric lights!” I told to J. He was fine with that, so we
eventually spent around $200 in solar flashlights and lanterns.
That turned out to be a non-economical, non-sustainable
idea. Here’s why.
Solar lights don’t last very long.
Two of the flashlights have already quit working. Quit working. I’ve never seen a
flashlight with a shorter life than these. There was nothing to do but throw
them away. It’s not like you can change the batteries and make them work again.
So we had to add yet more garbage to the ever-growing landfills.
The el-cheapo solar camping lantern, which was our first
purchase, also died a few months ago. That was more of a case of
you-get-what-you-pay-for than anything else. A-hem, and it probably didn’t help
that we left it out in the rain one day and it turned out not to be as
waterproof as the more expensive lanterns.
Oops.
The charging mechanism can go haywire.
One of our $40 lanterns, which are the biggest and put off
the most light, will no longer charge to its full capacity. It stays dim, no
matter how long you charge it. The good news is, it makes a perfect nightlight
to replace the other, completely broken lantern that B had been using before
while he slept.
The lanterns won’t fully charge between autumn and spring.
Due to the earth orbiting around the sun, we recently began
experiencing shorter days. Instead of fifteen or sixteen hours of daylight,
we’re down to about eleven – and decreasing a bit more every day. To my
chagrin, I discovered that the big lanterns won’t fully charge without at least
twelve or thirteen hours of daylight.
The good news with that is that these same lanterns are able
to be charged via an electric outlet or a car battery, as well. And since the
light bulbs are LED, they require such a miniscule amount of energy to charge,
the impact of charging them via electricity is negligible.
But there goes another one of my “good” ideas of not having
to use any power from the grid. *Sigh.*
We’ve decided to buy a couple of lamps, one for downstairs
and one for the loft, and light them with LED bulbs. We’ll have all the light
we want, whenever we want.
