Solar-Powered Lighting

Mankind needs light. We humans are dependent on light unlike some other species. Our whole world existed only in the day light for millions of years. We got up with the sunlight and went to bed when the sun went down. Later, we learned to produce our own light, but we were not totally successful at it until we started using electricity to make light.

This has worked well for approximately a hundred years, but now we realize that the main fuel used to produce our electricity, that is to say oil, is becoming too complicated to get hold of and more and more wars are being fought to ensure the West's supply of oil.

Not only that, but greater and greater risks are being taken by oil companies, which has lead to more and more catastrophies like that of the deep sea rig off Louisiana in the USA.

Therefore, the time has arrived, some even say that it is long past due, that we depend on a different source of power and less on oil. The simplest and least hazardous way to produce electricity at the moment seems to be solar power. Solar powered lighting has been with us for decades, but it was not viable for households to use it because it was too expensive, but that is no longer true.

The ability to use solar power to make electricity for our lighting and indeed all our requirements is there, already at hand. The only problem is that there are many oil baron billionaires who do not see this advancement as being in their interest. And they are right, in a way, it is not in their selfish interest to decrease our dependence on oil, but it is in the planet's and its population's interest. That is mankind's dilemma at this moment.

Solar panels can be utilized to produce electricity for immediate use either inside or outside the home and the excess generated can either be stored in batteries or fed back into the electric grid for which you will be remunerated (and remunerated at a very high rate, in some countries).

If you are not ready to come off the grid just quite yet, you could still use solar panels to run some of your external lights. In fact, there is a wide choice of outdoor lighting that makes its own power.

These external lights use mini solar panels, which the producer has built in to the casing of the light to create power from the sunlight during daylight hours and then stores it in internal batteries to be utilized later.

These solar powered lighting units also have a capacity to run the light on battery power from dusk until dawn. The solar unit determines whether to charge the batteries or give off light by the intensity of the ambient light. This solar power set up is ideal for external security lighting and accent lighting in the garden. They are perfect for lighting up the fish pond or the drive too.

Solar powered lighting has come a long way and it is well worth you finding out more, if you would like to decrease your dependency on electricity produced by oil from the grid.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present concerned with outdoor accent lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.