Solar Lights Exposed

This is quite a recent trend from Christmas lights manufacturers. Not surprisingly, it’s probably in response to the current dire economic conditions. In this post, I’m going to start off by briefly give an overview on how solar Christmas lights work. Then I’ll discuss how they provide you with cost savings and end with some of the ways you can do your decorations with these lights. After reading through this, you would be more inclined to consider solar lights over the traditional forms of lighting for the coming holiday season.

Solar Christmas lights essentially function in the same manner as solar powered garden lights. They consist of a solar panel to absorb the sunlight, a controller board connected to a battery in which the converted electricity is stored, and an optical sensor that detects whether there is light or darkness in the surrounding. So straight away, you’ll already see some of the benefits. These lights won’t use power from your mains since their power source is the sun as they charge during day time. Also, you don’t have to be constantly vigilant to know when to turn the lights off when not needed – it’s pretty much automatic. Such efficient energy usage is definitely most welcomed especially nowadays.

The energy cost savings can be attributed to the type of bulbs used in these solar lights. Being LED bulbs, they use less energy than the traditional incandescent bulbs. Also, they last much longer with good quality LED solar lights possessing rated lifetimes of up to 100,000 hours. Thirdly, they tend to burn brighter than the old style bulbs. So you can now enjoy better lighting decoration for your home at a lower cost.

At the moment, you might find that the range of shapes and colors of solar Christmas lights to be limited. This can only improve over time as demand increases. This is more than offset by the cost savings they can achieve. There are other flexibilities offered by solar lights. Since they generally use a battery, they won’t need to be connected to a power outlet. For example, normally you place your Christmas tree in a particular corner of your house because it’s closest to an outlet. Otherwise, you might be running those annoying (and potentially dangerous) long extension cords across your room. If you used solar string lights, you wouldn’t face these issues. With this in mind, you can probably start to imagine some of the other possibilities on decorating your home – e.g. draping colored solar lights across your fence.

Remember, Christmas is a time of joy which doesn’t need to be costly to you and your family each year.

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Use of solar lights isn’t merely confined to the residential sector. Their popularity spans across other markets such as the commercial sector. In this post, I’ll provide an overview of a few different applications in the commercial world and the benefits specific in those applications, including solar street lights, solar billboard lights and solar sign lights. When you reach the end of this post, you’ll hopefully be open to the vast possibilities of solar lights.

Solar street lights

As you know, reliable street lights are absolutely essential for both drivers using the road as well as nearby pedestrians on the smaller streets (e.g. solar walkway lights). Dark or poorly lit intersections and roadways possessing curved sections which are major blind spots pose significant (and often life threatening) risks. Since a solar street light draws its energy from the sun which is then stored in a self-contained battery rather than being connected to a power grid, it would not be affected by power outages. This makes them very reliable as the chances of blackouts whilst using these types of lights is significantly reduced.

Another major advantage of battery powered solar lights is that sometimes the streets or roadways requiring lighting might be located in areas where wiring to the nearest power grid may be either too expensive, difficult or even completely infeasible.

Solar Billboard lights

As a business, you always have to keep in mind all the expenses you’re incurring – whether they are necessary, or can you somehow at least reduce them. With solar lights you certainly can. Because they are basically self-sufficient, the running costs much lower compared to traditional billboard lighting which could often be up $1000 per month over a period of a year. With the cost savings from solar lights, you have the choice of either charging less for the advertisement space on your billboards (pass on the savings) or leaving the charge the same and achieve higher profits.

Solar Sign Lights

As indicated earlier, advertising cost can (and most likely) form a major component in your business expense. Being able to maintain your marketing strength but reduce the cost is something that would be well sought after. Moving to solar power lighting would allow you to achieve this. You would also have the added benefit of portraying an environmentally friendly image to your customers and the surrounding community members.

In all the above scenarios, the financial savings are not just isolated to operating the solar lights over time, but also in the installation. Running on battery means that you don’t need to dig up the ground followed by any landscaping work in order to lay wire from a power grid to the lights. Additionally, there is no need for purchasing transformers and electric meters to track power consumption for a monthly electric bill.

It’s no wonder why solar lighting is become more and more popular these days. And it is likely for this trend to continue into the future.

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Once you have decided to buy solar lights, the next step of course is choosing the right one to suit your needs. The range of choices available nowadays is fairly huge. You can get solar lights in various shapes, sizes, material and with different fixtures. You’re almost practically only limited by your imagination.

In this post, I want to tackle a few main areas that would very likely form part of your selection criteria. I intend to go through lighting purposes, installation location and surrounding environment factors. If you get a handle on these basic points, you should be able to make a more informed decision or at least ask the right questions when approaching a solar lighting sales person.

Firstly, ask yourself the question, “Why do I want a solar garden lighting?” or “How am I going to use the solar garden lights?”. Understanding the reason behind it will allow you choose an appropriate type of lighting. With this question, I’m looking past the obvious benefits that solar lights offer over conventional lights. For example, if you intend to use it as part of the security to your home, then solar security lights would be better suited than simply generic purposed solar lights for garden. If you wish to provide lighting as a guide when you drive up to your home, then there are specific solar driveway lights. If you want to show off your beautiful garden design at night, then you can get solar powered landscape lighting. Knowing the lighting purpose is closely linked to the installation location.

Generally, when you install your LED solar lights, it would be preferable to avoid any areas where sunlight has difficulty reaching – that is, covered areas and low areas. If you could find a spot where the solar panels can have direct full exposure to sunlight, that would be ideal. Thus, doing some pre-planning and knowing the layout of your yard before shopping for your solar lights is important.

Apart from understanding the contours of the surroundings, there are the environmental factors. Yes, using solar lights would be good for the environment but this is not what I’m referring to. What you should take into consideration is the kind of weather conditions your solar lamp lights would be exposed to. If you expect proper operations in harsh wet weather then pay attention to solar lights containing water resistant components with switches that are well insulated. Also, ask yourself how the choice of your lights affect your neighbors. This is somewhat associated with the location of installation as well. If you bought wall mounted solar lights that used extremely bright bulbs which shines into your neighbor’s window, than this might pose a bit of a problem.

Now that you have an idea of the primary criteria to keep in mind when you shop for your next set of solar lights, you should be able to plan your purchase more carefully.

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