Saving Money and Energy With Solar Lights

If you are environmentally conscious, budget minded, plain practical, or all of the above, you want solar lights for your home.  Solar lights do not require those big, expensive solar panels to be mounted on your roof.  Rather, they are small-scale and usually have their power source and storage built-in.  These lights, most often used to illuminate driveways and garden paths, feature an LED (light-emitting diode) in a housing which also contain a small solar panel for catching the sun's power.  This energy is stored in a storage battery during the day to be used at night.  If you have looked into full-scale solar power for the house, you should know that the cost is still out of reach for most people.  Why then are the smaller solar lights so much cheaper?  The low cost is thanks mainly to LED technology (LED stands for light emitting diode).  LEDs give light by passing electrical current through the active chemical.  The amount of actual electricity is minute compared to that necessary to power incandescent and even flourescent lights.  This translates to only needing very small photovoltaic cells in order to function.  Add to this the fact that LEDs outlive these conventional light sources not by hours, but by TENS of THOUSANDS of hours, and you begin to understand that solar lights are a great idea. 

Another advantage of solar lights is the headache they save in terms of installation and maintenance.  Rather than having to string a very very long power cord (depending on the distance you have to cover) to your lights, most solar lights are simply mounted or stuck into the ground as with solar garden lights.  There, they function as independent units without needing to be connected to any power source besides the free one provided by the sun.  No cords to trip over, accidentally tear up, or god forbid sever with a pickaxe or shovel when doing yard work.  Since the units are independent, this also makes replacement a cinch.  And for the lazy and/or forgetful, solar lights are a dream come true.  The owner of these lights does not have to so much as lift a finger to turn the lights on or off, as they can turn on once built-in sensors indicate it is dark.  This is great for those people who come home after dark and need the guiding lights to safely park their cars or make their way to the front door- the lights come on every night, by themselves.  No need to worry about wasting power either- your energy is free, renewable, and sustainable now.  So keeping the outside of your house illuminated need not be a burden on your wallet.
The nature of solar lights makes them a no-brainer for surveillance lights, such as for outside a store or spot lights mounted on the side of a shed.  They also make sense for shop signs that you want illuminated at night- this translates into free advertising once you recoup the original cost of the light.  However, if you need a light to fuction 100% of the time(though no source is really 100% reliable), solar lights may often not stay on for as long as you want due to unsufficient exposure to sunlight.  In these cases, it is good to have a backup or another source of light.

Some solar lighting can be used by just about anyone- for instance, even if it isn't important to you to have a well-lit garden path, solar Christmas lights would still make sense for you in terms of energy savings.  It doesn't make sense to use anything but a solar patio light, solar security light, solar spot light, solar shed light, or solar deck light- solar light is clearly the best choice in all these situations because you don't need a super bright light in these instances, just enough to get the job done. 
Cheap is important, because most people do not have solar panels on their homes due to the high cost.  With LED solar lighting, you can buy multi-packs of lights for under $20.  These are basic models, and you can pay more if you wish to get something fancier.  One such basic model advertises 8 hours of illumination per 8 hours of sunlight daily, though some user reviews state that they only got two hours worth of illumination daily.  The rechargeable batteries must also be replaced on average every year or two.  These store the energy from the sun so that it can be released at night, when you need it.  NiMH and NiCD batteries are a better investment as they last far longer.  Investing in a battery tester is a good idea as it allows you to be sure when your batteries need to be replaced.  Sometimes you might think you have a problem with the batteries when it's actually another issue, like insufficient sunlight.  Batteries are often AA size and can easily be found from sellers like Amazon. 

With solar lights, the job gets done better, for free.  Thanks to solar powered lights, you no longer have to feel that it's a necessary evil to consume power in order to keep areas around your home or business illuminated for security purposes at night.  They really are an easy, practical and relatively cheap way to cut down on energy costs and consumption.  Just remember that as with all things solar, you need sufficient exposure to sunlight for the item to function properly.  This is the only real drawback of solar lights for the user- the dependence on sunlight.  You can't always count on the sun to be out, even if you live in a place like New Mexico.  But for most users, the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks and solar lights will be a great thing to have.