Environmentalists throughout the world are still in shock. Who would’ve every thought President Bush would push solar energy?

The Initiative

As you undoubtedly know by now, the President George Bush announced it was time to start weaning ourselves from our oil addiction during his State of the Union speech. As with anything in politics, there is much gnashing of the teeth as to whether the President, an avowed oil man form an oil family in Texas, really means to do anything. The answer, of course, is really almost irrelevant if people would stop to consider the fact that solar power was even mentioned in such a speech. Clearly, a baby step has been taken, if not a giant leap. So, what is the President’s grand plan?

From an overall perspective, President Bush has issued an Advanced Energy Initiative to begin changing our energy habits to cleaner, non-foreign supply, based fuels. As is his habit, the President has a Solar America Initiative as part of the larger initiative. This is where we find the key solar components.

With the Solar America Initiative, the administration has set a goal of accelerating widespread acceptance of clean solar technologies throughout the U.S. by 2015. Yes, it is a bit murky in regards to the exact goal, but the Energy Department recently clarified matters.

According to the Energy Department, the goal is to generate 5 to 10 megawatts of electricity in United States by 2015. While this may sound impressive, 10 megawatts of energy is barely enough to power two million homes. In comparison, California alone intends to put one million homes on solar in the next ten years. Put another way, the Solar America Initiative isn’t particularly impressive.

While the President appears to be paying lip service to solar energy in this Initiative, it should be noted that he is due more than a small bit of credit. First, he has put solar power and other clean energy on the political table. Second, the administration has taken major steps in other legislation to provide tax credits for solar power and renewable energy platforms. Those steps, not the Solar America Initiative, are going to make a major impact on the promotion of solar energy in the country. For that reason alone, the President should be applauded.

Rick Chapo is with SolarCompanies.com, a directory of solar energy companies. Visit us to read more articles on solar power and renewable energy.

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Solar lights are very popular for lighting yards and gardens. They are virtually maintenance free, easy to install, and cost almost nothing to run. Once you have bought solar lights, the only future maintenance costs are for replacement batteries.

The only drawback for solar lighting is that they must be placed in an area which receives a lot of sunlight during the day. If your garden or a pathway is shaded, solar lighting is not going to work very well.

If you are intent on having solar lighting for a shaded area, you can install a solar panel on your roof or other spot which receives a lot of sunlight. This is a bit more expensive than regular solar path lights or solar spotlights and you need to run a wire from the solar panel to the lights.

Depending on the amount of sunlight received during the day, solar garden lights can provide six to 12 hours of lighting in the evening. They have a built in photosensor which turns the lights on when it becomes dark. They remain lit until the battery is depleted or the sun rises — whichever comes first.

Regular solar garden lights are easy to install. Simply pushed him into the ground, adjust the photocell so that it is aiming towards the sun most of the day, and that’s it! Instant lighting! Unfortunately, this same ease of installation also makes solar garden lights and easy target for thieves and vandals. They simply pull them out of the ground and it’s goodbye to your solar path lights.

Solar lights which are permanently installed on a deck or patio are more difficult to swipe. These kinds of lights require a screwdriver to install and also to remove. They are still vulnerable to theft but a little more difficult to steal.

Solar garden lights are available in a variety of styles. You can buy hanging solar lights, solar spotlights, and even specialty solar lights such as colored lights and swimming pool lights. They are available at quite a reasonable cost but it’s worthwhile shelling out a few extra bucks to get a good set of lights. Cheaper lights have been known to break during the storm conditions and high winds.

Hans is editor of Patio Heaters and one of the authors of
http://www.patio-furniture-ideas.com

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Residential outdoor lighting is a billion dollar a year industry in the United States. It is getting so popular, there is now a corporation that franchises individual businesses dealing only in exterior landscape lighting design, supply, and installation! Line voltage systems used to be the only option for outdoor lighting but in recent years, low voltage lighting
systems and solar powered lights have made exterior decorative lighting available to every home owner -not just the rich ones.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 67% of adult Americans are homeowners (2004 statistics). Renovation, remodeling and home improvement are massively popular activities that only reflect the priority that consumers give in making their property as comfortable and pleasing as possible. Gardening has always been a past time homeowners enjoy in beautifying their property, both for themselves and to raise the “curb appeal”, but up until a decade ago, beautifying the nightscape was not a mainstream idea.

Hotels, resorts and similar type commercial properties have always used light to create beautiful atmospheres on their grounds, but given the cost of an outdoor lighting system,
residential lighting applications were mostly limited to basic security needs. Landscapes were enjoyed during daylight hours but when the sun went down, the outdoor portion of a homeowner’s property was not used.

Low Voltage outdoor lighting systems

Low voltage lighting systems and solar powered lights are changing this. A low voltage lighting system plugs into a transformer and takes household current down to 12 volts. This
means real energy efficiency and eliminates the building code requirements for burying cables 18 inches for line voltage systems. The lights can be used for any outdoor lighting
application, although they still need to be wired together. Trenching and some cable burying will also probably be required. Additionally, the capacity of the transformer must be
sufficient to cover the combined power draw (watts) of every light in the system.

The Solar landscape lighting option

Solar powered lights are not wired to anything and require no transformers. Installing them is as easy as sticking them in the ground, or mounting them wherever you need them. The draw
back is that the photovoltaic charging panels (usually mounted on the top of the light fixture) that capture the sun’s energy need direct sunlight during the day to charge the batteries that provide power to illuminate the light at night. And in higher latitudes where the period of darkness is longer in winter months, there is a good chance that the lights will not get enough sun during the day to be able to illuminate for the entire period of darkness.

Even so, solar powered landscaping lights are becoming extremely popular although this was not always the case. Up until two or three years ago, solar lights were not as bright as many consumers wanted, didn’t illuminate for long periods and too often, did not operate longer than a year or two before becoming defective. Today however, solar lights are bright
enough for almost any outdoor application, will illuminate for the entire night and -provided you get quality models - will last 20 years without maintenance or defect.

These dramatic increases in solar outdoor lighting reliability are due to recent advances in two areas of technology: photovoltaic cells and the introduction of the Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulb.

The photovoltaic cell is the technology that “captures” the sun’s energy. In the 1980’s, these cells could absorb only about 5% of the sunlight they were exposed to. Today this
figure is moving past 15% and as further development of the compounds used in these cells continues (they are now silicon based but other compounds are being studied) they will only
get more efficient.

Perhaps even more exciting has been the introduction of the solid state LED bulb. This technology involves manipulating electrons and moving them in a certain direction so that
photons are produced. This creation of photons is the visible light. Unlike the traditional incandescent bulb, there is no excited gas, no burning filament, and therefore next to no
heat production. Almost all of the energy produced is used as light. The bulbs last for 10,000 hours, require no maintenance and draw on average only three to five watts.

Today’s solar lights are excellent value

One of the biggest critiques of solar lights in the past has been the intensity of brightness they produce. This was a fair comment, but today’s solar lights are much brighter. Many mistake the term watt as a measure of brightness, which of course, it is not.

A watt is the measurement of the power required to operate something. If talking about only one type of light bulb, then there is a relationship; a 40w incandescent bulb will not be as
bright as a 60w bulb. But when dealing with different technologies, this comparison is not fair. Indeed, one LED bulb drawing between three and five watts will produce the same
brightness as a 40w bulb. And many solar lights are now manufactured with multiple LEDs, therefore producing light much brighter than the glow of a traditional 40w incandescent product.

More and more consumers are realizing that outdoor accent lighting really does have an enormous effect in creating a beautiful nightscape environment. Some prefer a low voltage
lighting system because they will illuminate for the entire period of darkness and are reliable and energy efficient. Other consumers prefer the solar outdoor lighting solution because these lights are now just as reliable, are far easier to install and can be moved around at whim when trying different effects. There is also a satisfaction in getting free
energy from the sun! But whatever the choice, there is no denying that residential outdoor lighting systems are becoming a standard feature on millions of properties.

Kavar Peter is a successful freelance writer with a strong interest in renewable energy issues. He writes regularly about solar powered products including garden lighting and pathway lighting solutions.

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