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CAUSE AND EFFECT! CHOOSE YOUR PATH...
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Solar residential outdoor lighting is becoming the product of choice for millions of consumers
Residential outdoor lighting is a billion dollar a year industry
in the United States. It is getting so popular, there is now a
corporation that franchises individual businesses dealing only
in exterior landscape lighting design, supply, and installation!
Line voltage systems used to be the only option for outdoor
lighting but in recent years, low voltage lighting systems and
solar powered lights have made exterior decorative lighting
available to every home owner -not just the rich ones.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 67% of adult Americans are
homeowners (2004 statistics). Renovation, remodeling and home
improvement are massively popular activities that only reflect
the priority that consumers give in making their property as
comfortable and pleasing as possible. Gardening has always been
a past time homeowners enjoy in beautifying their property, both
for themselves and to raise the "curb appeal", but up until a
decade ago, beautifying the nightscape was not a mainstream
idea.
Hotels, resorts and similar type commercial properties have
always used light to create beautiful atmospheres on their
grounds, but given the cost of an outdoor lighting system,
residential lighting applications were mostly limited to basic
security needs. Landscapes were enjoyed during daylight hours
but when the sun went down, the outdoor portion of a homeowner's
property was not used.
Low Voltage outdoor lighting systems
Low voltage lighting systems and solar powered lights are
changing this. A low voltage lighting system plugs into a
transformer and takes household current down to 12 volts. This
means real energy efficiency and eliminates the building code
requirements for burying cables 18 inches for line voltage
systems. The lights can be used for any outdoor lighting
application, although they still need to be wired together.
Trenching and some cable burying will also probably be required.
Additionally, the capacity of the transformer must be sufficient
to cover the combined power draw (watts) of every light in the
system.
The Solar landscape lighting option
Solar powered lights are not wired to anything and require no
transformers. Installing them is as easy as sticking them in the
ground, or mounting them wherever you need them. The draw back
is that the photovoltaic charging panels (usually mounted on the
top of the light fixture) that capture the sun's energy need
direct sunlight during the day to charge the batteries that
provide power to illuminate the light at night. And in higher
latitudes where the period of darkness is longer in winter
months, there is a good chance that the lights will not get
enough sun during the day to be able to illuminate for the
entire period of darkness.
Even so, solar powered landscaping lights are becoming extremely
popular although this was not always the case. Up until two or
three years ago, solar lights were not as bright as many
consumers wanted, didn't illuminate for long periods and too
often, did not operate longer than a year or two before becoming
defective. Today however, solar lights are bright enough for
almost any outdoor application, will illuminate for the entire
night and -provided you
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Create an environmentally friendly shopping policy
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get quality models - will last 20 years
without maintenance or defect.
These dramatic increases in solar outdoor lighting reliability
are due to recent advances in two areas of technology:
photovoltaic cells and the introduction of the Light Emitting
Diode (LED) bulb.
The photovoltaic cell is the technology that "captures" the
sun's energy. In the 1980's, these cells could absorb only about
5% of the sunlight they were exposed to. Today this figure is
moving past 15% and as further development of the compounds used
in these cells continues (they are now silicon based but other
compounds are being studied) they will only get more efficient.
Perhaps even more exciting has been the introduction of the
solid state LED bulb. This technology involves manipulating
electrons and moving them in a certain direction so that photons
are produced. This creation of photons is the visible light.
Unlike the traditional incandescent bulb, there is no excited
gas, no burning filament, and therefore next to no heat
production. Almost all of the energy produced is used as light.
The bulbs last for 10,000 hours, require no maintenance and draw
on average only three to five watts.
Today's solar lights are excellent value
One of the biggest critiques of solar lights in the past has
been the intensity of brightness they produce. This was a fair
comment, but today's solar lights are much brighter. Many
mistake the term watt as a measure of brightness, which of
course, it is not.
A watt is the measurement of the power required to operate
something. If talking about only one type of light bulb, then
there is a relationship; a 40w incandescent bulb will not be as
bright as a 60w bulb. But when dealing with different
technologies, this comparison is not fair. Indeed, one LED bulb
drawing between three and five watts will produce the same
brightness as a 40w bulb. And many solar lights are now
manufactured with multiple LEDs, therefore producing light much
brighter than the glow of a traditional 40w incandescent product.
More and more consumers are realizing that outdoor accent
lighting really does have an enormous effect in creating a
beautiful nightscape environment. Some prefer a low voltage
lighting system because they will illuminate for the entire
period of darkness and are reliable and energy efficient. Other
consumers prefer the solar outdoor lighting solution because
these lights are now just as reliable, are far easier to install
and can be moved around at whim when trying different effects.
There is also a satisfaction in getting free energy from the
sun! But whatever the choice, there is no denying that
residential outdoor lighting systems are becoming a standard
feature on millions of properties.
About the author:
Kavar Peter is a successful freelance writer with a strong
interest in renewable energy issues. He writes regularly about
solar powered
products including ga
rden lighting and pathway lighting solutions. Copyright Kavar Peter 2005
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