A Guide To Solar Lighting

Choosing Solar Lighting Guide

Recent advances in solar harvesting technology have made solar lights more affordable and efficient than ever before.

Compared with traditional mains lighting, solar lighting is much easier and cheaper to install. Solar units are more flexible to install because they don’t require a 240 volt supply.

Performance and reliability in solar lighting have improved hugely in the last few years.

Power consumption requirements have been reduced with the use of LED bulbs, which also give increased illumination. Direct sunlight used to be a necessity for solar lights to take enough charge to work properly. Improvements in solar panel technology have led to improvements in the light required in order to harvest the suns energy. Advancements in solar technology are occurring fast and will continue to do so.

You have several style options for garden solar lighting. Traditional lantern style wall lighting. Lighting for post or hung style applications. A large variety of different fairy light designs. Deck lighting which is designed to recess so it sits flush with the deck timber. Solar powered lighting with security motion sensors. These lights will either have a wired panel that you can position nearby, or an integrated panel built into the top of the light unit itself. It will depend on the positioning of your lights as to which type of design is the best for you.

By design, integrated solar lights have smaller panels, meaning that they will usually need more hours of sunlight to work effectively.

Being larger, external panels can harvest more energy faster than built in units. To reduce costs, manufacturers often fit lower quality rechargeable batteries which are not ideal if you want good performance from your lighting. Original batteries from the Far East are often unreliable and so replacing them makes sense.

Solar Lights and Performance

The location of your lights will determine their solar efficiency. Ideal placement of solar lights is out of the shade, where they can get maximum benefit from all the daylight available. If your lights spend too much time in the shade then their performance will be reduced.

Solar lights are much less efficient in shade and shadows, so try to position your lights for optimum sunlight. Product performance will improve as solar panel and battery technologies improve further. The annual sales of solar lighting products are growing every year.

Using solar energy devices not only saves you money on your energy bills, but because they are environmentally friendly they help to preserve the planets resources too.