With resources like oil getting more expensive, solar lighting is becoming more and more popular. Technologies have improved a lot over the past ten years; the most popular use for solar powered lighting is in and around the yard. Along pathways, around the deck, even underneath bushes, they set decorative light accents without any annoying cables drawn around or having to be buried. Newer designs include motion sensor solar lighting, stepping stones with built-in efficient solar lights and solar powered Christmas lights. The multiple uses of efficient solar lights could reduce December power bills dramatically. The best thing about solar lighting is the fact that it is renewable and inexhaustible. It reduces the dependency on fossil fuels, and it does not create harmful waste or pollution.
Lighting counts for approximately of 20 percent of the average household electricity bill. In recent years, solar lighting has also become very popular for indoor lighting. Tubular Skylights are another example of energy efficient solar lighting. Used in commercial buildings and schools, they reduce energy bills significantly and light up otherwise dark areas.
In Europe, the new trend is also to change to efficient solar lights for streetlights with average energy savings of 46 percent. They adjust automatically to the environment’s light, last over 18,000 hours and have the big advantage to be easily used even in remote areas where there might not even be electricity.
A recent innovation in solar technologies may make it even more efficient. Until 2008, scientists were convinced that silicone solar panels could only generate about 40 percent efficiency (meaning that only 40 percent of the generated energy is usable). Instead of working more intense on increasing the efficiency, they opted to find ways to produce the panels cheaper. However, nanotechnology could provide a panel that may be 80 percent efficient, and work even in dusk. This is a big step, considering that the first solar panel had an efficiency of 1 percent! In addition, according to latest reports from Europe, by 2025 2.5 percent of the world’s power could be generated by solar energy. Efficient solar lights run on that free, clean energy and the good news is that the technology constantly improves.
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