Are Outdoor Solar Lights Bright Enough For Your Garden?

Are Outdoor Solar Powered Lights Bright Enough?

How solar powered lights work is evolving all the time. In the past two or three years the quality has made a quantum leap. Where as at one time the lights were not as bright as people expected and life expectancy of the solar panel was only two to three years before they would become defective. Nowadays the good quality solar lights are bright enough for almost any outdoor area and can transform the garden, lighting it for the whole evening. The best models will now last up to 20 Years!!

So how have these achievements been made? Well there are several factors;

• Each light contains a photovoltaic cell that captures the solar energy from the sun. To begin with you could only expect a capture rate of about 5% nowadays you can expect a capture rate of about 15%.

• The use of silicon in the photovoltaic cells has improve efficiency but other materials are now being experimented with which may also increase solar efficiency.

• Introduction of solid state LED bulbs. These bulbs are so much more efficient to our ordinary gas filled bulbs. Traditionally in a normal bulb are gas filled with a filament that produces heat as well as light. Solid State LED bulbs uses the technology that manipulates electrons moving them in a certain direction, this produces photons, and these photons are visible light!

• Solid state LED bulbs now last an incredible 10,000 hours, can work using on average 3 watts of power and are maintenance free.

As you can see you have to choose carefully but as a general note the higher quality of the solar garden product the better the quality of light