Solar Power Lights

In the not too distant past outdoor solar power lights were introduced to an eagerly awaiting marketplace.   These first generation solar power lights were intended to be used as accent lighting in gardens and landscaped areas.  Garden flowers and landscaping plants are fully "powered" by the sun so the idea of lighting them during the dark night seemed very appealing, especially to those concerned about the environment.  All solar power lights have a collector panel where silicon wafers encased in photovaic cells capture the sun's energy during the day and store it in special rechargeable batteries inside the light.  When the sun went down, the lights came on and were supposed to last till dawn when the sun reappeared.

Unfortunately the first generation of solar power lights may actually have tarnished the image of the capability of solar power in the public eye.  First, even with a full eight hours of direct exposure to sunlight during the day, the light produced at night wasn't very bright and became dimmer and dimmer as the night wore on.  And many unsuspecting consumers purchased solar power lights for use in areas that only received partial sun.  The light they got was barely visible in some cases and rarely lasted much more than a few hours.  Finally, these early lights were made of cheap plastic and were not particularly attractive.

Well you can't stop a good idea once it gets started and the current generation of solar power lights have come a long way from black plastic and dim lighting. First, solar power lights are now available in a variety of styles designed for a variety of uses.  For general landscape accent lighting you can now find old fashioned hanging carriage lanterns as well as sleek and modernistic forms and shapes.  You can use solar polar lights as caps on your deck and fencing posts.  There are solar powered table lamps for your patio and deck tables and benches.  You can even find large solar powered patio lamps that look like city street lights.  And they come in a variety of finishes.

Newer solar technology also tackles the problem of full access to the sun.  One major manufacturer of solar power lights -- the Westinghouse Corporations -- advertises its "amorphous" solar panel collector that captures the energy of the sun even on cloudy days.  And someone came up with the brilliant idea of separating the collector panel from the light fixture to expand the applications for which solar panel lights could be used.  For people with utility sheds or other structures on their property that have no power lines running to them solar panel lights seem like an obvious answer.  But if a utility light fixture is installed under the eave of a building, the solar collector panel is completely blocked.  Now there are solar powered utility lights available with remote solar collectors.  The collector panel can be mounted on the roof or anywhere it can be exposed to the sky and a connecting wire is hooked back up to the light fixture.