Rise | We've Done the Research
Outdoor Solar Lighting Solutions
Adding exterior lighting to your home is one way to add visible curb appeal while also adding a sense of comfort, security, and décor. Coming home on a cold, dark winter night to a home bathed in warm, exterior light is inviting and welcoming. In contrast, a dark home façade can often feel depressing and bleak. However, outdoor lighting is often a significant source of energy inefficiency. This inefficiency leads to an increased carbon footprint of our home and a higher monthly electricity bill. The American Medical Association (AMA) released a report documenting several potential human and environmental problems associated with excessive outdoor lighting.
Fortunately, many companies have begun to develop new outdoor lighting products. These new products incorporate solar energy and LED lighting solutions to offer an energy-efficient solution for exterior home lighting.
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Benefits of Outdoor Solar Lighting
Outdoor solar lighting focuses on placing lights in areas that will illuminate your home's exterior areas while also capturing energy from the sun during the day. Small solar panels are placed on the upper casing of these lighting products, which then charge small batteries incorporated into the design of the light itself. The LED lightbulbs usually use low wattage so that only a few hours of direct sun will be more than enough to power the light throughout the long night hours.
Solar Lighting Uses the Sun's Energy
The most apparent benefit of outdoor solar lighting products is that they pull no energy from the electrical grid. In comparison, a 400-watt incandescent reflector floodlight will most likely be using over three kWh of electricity during a typical eight-hour night. That adds up to 90 kWh of energy a month, which would cost you at least $10 a month to run. This correlates to this one exterior light adding about 110 pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each month since Carbonfund.org estimates that the average CO2 emission per kWh is around 1.2 pounds.
Do Solar Powered Lights Require Maintenance?
Once you have set up your outdoor lights in a sunny area, they are virtually maintenance-free. They will continue to work even during extended power outages. The rechargeable battery inside these lights recharges during the daylight hours. After several years of use, the only maintenance task might be changing the rechargeable battery that wears down through extended use over the years. If you're in a colder climate, you will want to be mindful of where the lights are installed and consider the effects of snowfall on this type of lighting.
Wide Variety of Solar Lighting Solutions Available
Another benefit of outdoor solar lighting is that there is a wide variety of lighting solutions available. Some are powerful solar security lights and floodlights that activate with motion sensors and provide high lumens. Others can light up your front path or driveway, and still, others are in string format to add ambiance to an outdoor patio or porch. There are outdoor lighting products suitable for every home.
Safety and Security With Solar Lighting
Outdoor solar lighting is an inexpensive way to add to your home's overall security and safety. Outdoor floodlights will automatically turn on at night, discouraging vandals and intruders from approaching your house, even when you are not home. Solar path lights can certainly be helpful when trying to navigate your way home during a cold, icy night.
Solar Lights With High Lumens
One common problem that many people report with outdoor solar lighting products is that they are not bright enough to be useful. Poor manufacturing wherein the company installs less than optimum LED lights into the product usually causes this. When searching for outdoor lighting products, look at the lumens rating instead of the wattage. Wattage is related to power consumption (not very important in solar lights). It does not necessarily relate to the brightness or illumination capacity of the fixture. On the other hand, lumens are the measurement of the total amount of visible light to the human eye.
For example, a 40-watt incandescent bulb will produce about 680 lumens (or 17 lumens per watt). However, LED lights can produce upwards of 90 lumens per watt. So, this means that a 7-watt LED light can create a similar amount of lumens. For example, this solar motion light, produced by SUNFORCE, produces 850 Lumens of light - making for a bright exterior lighting solution.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
