How to choose the best solar light?

If you’re looking forward to lighting up a specific area, solar light is an excellent choice for you. Solar lights are a great alternative solution to traditional lights connected to the grid power. Converting sunlight energy into electricity during the day and working at night, it’s environmentally friendly and cost-effective. While it’s possible to reduce carbon emissions and saving energy consumption by using solar light, the solar light is becoming more and more popular among people. Since solar light doesn’t rely on electricity from the power grid, you won’t receive extra energy bills while using them. 

Solar lights can light the path of your backyard and enhance the appearance of your outdoor space. As winter comes, the nights are getting longer and people will concern the illimitation. Using solar lights won’t increase your electric bill, and it’s easy to install and maintenance-free. It’s popular to use solar light as the pathway light, freestanding light, and wall-mounted lights.

So how to choose the best solar light? We made this guide for you to make a better choice.

How does solar light work?

Solar light is a lighting system mainly composed of 3 components, a solar panel, a battery, and a led lamp. To Make it short, the solar panel converts sunlight into electricity during the day and stores it in the battery. Once the solar panel stops charging the battery, led lamps works to produce light at night. 

A solar panel can convert sunlight into usable energy by using a photovoltaic panel (as known as a solar cell) to capture photons of the sun’s radiation into electrons. The stream of electrons means direct current electricity which can be stored in a rechargeable battery. Once the electricity starts to generate, the battery is charged and stores the electrical power.

When the darkness sensor in the solar light detects there is little or no sunlight outside, the battery is activated to power the led lamp. Comparing with traditional light bulbs, led lamp use significantly less energy than any other kind of lamping. Combining led lamps with solar panels is a winning idea.

Benefits of using solar light

Budget-friendly

In many cases, it’s too costly to bring in the grid and pay the electric bill. Solar light uses no power from the grid and has 0 cost to use. Solar panels convert the sunlight to feed the battery during the day to make sure there is enough power for the nighttime. Many people have switched to solar lights and saving hundreds of dollars per year while enjoying bright and beautifully designed lights.

Easy to install

Solar light is off-grid and wireless during installation. Anyone could install solar lights and there is no needs to find an electrician or buy expensive tools. Most solar lights can be easily assembled and inserted into the ground, and some of them can be mounted into the wall. Consider both where you needed it during the night and where to receive enough sunlight during the day.

Eco-friendly

Without using any extra power from the grid, solar lights could generate enough power to make themselves work. By harnessing the energy of the sun, 0 carbon emission could be produced. Solar light is absolutely an eco-friendly choice.

Factors to consider when choosing solar light

There are many types, styles, and brands of solar lights available in the market, making it hard to know what’s right for your home. In this guide, we provide some factors to consider before the purchase.

Lumen & Wattage

A lumen is a unit measuring visible light, and wattage measures the amount of electricity the light bulb consumes. If you are looking for brighter solar light for your backyard, you can simply make your choice by choosing the one with larger lumens.

There are two general categories of solar light to choose from based on your needs and preferences, ambient lighting and accent lighting. For ambient lighting, 50-100 lumens is enough to illuminate paths or walkways. For accent lighting, 200-300 lumens can be better to focus illumination in key areas.

Night run time

Solar lights work well in most areas of the world. However, it’s important to have enough sunlight to make it work well at night. If the solar panel receives less sunlight than it needs during daylight, it will work fewer hours than expected.

Design

A well-designed solar light will add a sophisticated look to your backyard and any outdoor space. Usually, different companies produce different designs of solar lights, and you are free to choose your favorite design. The style of solar light you choose usually depends on how you want to use the solar lights, how many hours of sun exposure per day that location gets, and your overall decorating aesthetic.

How far apart should solar lights be?

You can simply measure your yard and use a spacing of 1.5-2 meters. Many factors may affect the spacing. generally, you could less the spacing if you want brighter illimitation. There are many options to place your solar lights to make them more appealing, such as along the walkways, in front of trees, or at the base of the perimeter wall. 

Waterproof

Solar lights have to be waterproof as a default factor. Outdoor weather is so unpredictable that the structure and material must be designed to keep your solar light working, IP65 is needed to keep it working safely. 

If you have any questions about solar lights, feel free to contact us.