Making the case for solar-powered LED outdoor lights

In an effort to stay ahead of the curve and move beyond oil, some com­pa­nies are explor­ing light alter­na­tives such as solar-powered out­door LED light­ing. And it’s none too soon given that if every­one on earth were to con­sume energy like we do in North Amer­ica (and all accounts point to devel­op­ing coun­tries catch­ing up to us soon in terms of energy con­sump­tion), the sup­plies of ura­nium (for nuclear plants), oil, and coal will run out in about 15 to 20 years.

Solar-powered light­ing, there­fore, has amaz­ing poten­tial to meet our light­ing needs with­out reliance on dirty, lim­ited ener­gies like oil and coal. But as the LEDs Mag­a­zine points out, until recently, solar light­ing was rel­a­tively expen­sive and unat­trac­tive. This was due in large part to their desire to plan for the worst case sce­nario: the short­est days with the cloud­i­est weather. As a result, the solar light­ing of old was used mainly where light was abun­dant: near the equator.

Com­bin­ing LED bulbs with solar col­lec­tors and effi­cient bat­ter­ies solves some of these prob­lems, mak­ing solar-powered LED out­door light­ing even more acces­si­ble the masses, at a lower cost in more-attractive fix­tures, too. Some of the ben­e­fits of these new sys­tems include:

• Bet­ter illu­mi­na­tion: Flu­o­res­cents pro­duce cool, effi­cient light, but because their beam angle is quite wide, they send light in all direc­tions. LEDs on the other hand, pro­duce direc­tional beams of light which means less light lost.
• Increased effi­ciency and directabil­ity: LEDs can pro­duce light when and where they’re needed, which means the solar pan­els and bat­ter­ies can decrease in size.
• Long life: LEDs require very lit­tle energy to run, so the bat­ter­ies can be smaller than with any other bulbs, and will last longer, too.
• All-weather: LEDs work well in all weather con­di­tions, even the cold. Flu­o­res­cents, on the other hand, tend to per­form poorly and have shorter lifes­pans when used in colder temperatures.

Although these are just some of the advan­tages to using LEDs in com­bi­na­tion with solar-powered fix­tures, it makes for a con­vinc­ing case.