Migrated blog: Originally written 29 August 2020
As I write this article my son is asleep upstairs and I am sitting alone at my desk in the dark. My face is lit from the light escaping my screen and the shadows of my typing fingers dance on the table as Alabama Shakes’ “This feeling” pierces the darkness with a soulful warmth.
It feels good knowing that the iPad I’m using is solely powered by the sun. In fact so is my phone, my girlfriend’s phone, even my macbook, well to about 80%. I have finally fulfilled an experiment I have had parked at the back of my head for a number of years: to have my handheld devices powered purely by renewable energy. Not only have I achieved this but it is completely sustainable, good weather or bad. Ok, so I have yet to experiment this in the harsher Austrian winters, but watch this space.
Flashback to London 2015
I had just discovered portable solar panels. If you ever saw a Ducati ridden by a maniac, darting in and out of London traffic with a solar panel hanging off his backpack, then that would have been me. Hooked up to a battery power bank in my bag the idea was to take this small solar panel with me everywhere I went and leave it in direct sunlight. Whether it was on my commute to and from work, or leaving my bag to cook in the sun on a rooftop in St James Park, my mission was simple, to have my mobile phone run solely on the sun’s energy.
Oh how it failed miserably.
Firstly trying to generate electricity from a tiny solar panel on a 1 hour round commute was seriously wishful thinking. Second, even though I had the panel in the sun all day at work, okay this was England who am I kidding?… even though it was in partly cloudy sunlight all day with the never ending chance of rain, it was not enough to light up the first bar on the power bank’s battery indicator.
The first day I truly harvested some sunlight in this setup I eagerly hooked the power bank up to my phone. My trusty device vibrated as I plugged it in, letting me know it was drinking from the renewable electrical goodness of the sun’s rays, enjoying it like a hipster having his first fair-trade sustainable coffee of the day.
My phone charged an extra 3% then the powerbank ran dry. 3% after being in the sun for almost 10 hours? You’ve got to be kidding me! I put the mini solar panel in a dusty box never to see the light of day, perhaps only to come out again should I need to power a single LED for 10 minutes.
It was there that this solar dream ended. If I wanted to really do it I would need bigger panels, access to a good amount of daily sunlight and the space to have panels in the sun all day. Living in London this was never really achievable, and when I moved to Vienna it was pretty much the same… until recently.
After lockdown I swore to myself and my son that we wouldn’t go through another lockdown without a garden or access to an outdoor space. If you have ever seen a video of an Ibex climbing a near vertical rock wall and wonder how the hell they do that, you will have some kind of idea of what it was like to watch my bored and restless 4 year old run around the flat after being locked in it for 2 months.
In July we found the perfect Maisonette with a South facing garden which gets flooded by sunlight from sunrise to sunset. It wasn’t until I burnt my feet waddling across the sun baked terrace that the solar dream was reignited. I had the sunlight, I had the space.. just needed the panels. I had a look online to see just how far the portable solar panel world had come in 5 years.
Originally I was only looking for solar panels, but then realised that I would need something to store all the electricity I would be harvesting and a little powerbank just wouldn’t cut it. I needed a setup that could produce enough electricity for my needs, but also non fixed, giving me the possibility to move it should we need more space on the terrace.
I found the company Goal Zero who produce a “briefcase” 100w solar panel that can be folded and packed away when not needed and also a compact, lightweight lithium Solar generator called the Yeti 200x. As the Goal Zero system has it’s own “ecosystem” of products, should I need to expand, I could buy more panels and daisy chain them up with my existing panels to the solar generator, or if I bought a bigger solar generator I could simply swap it out, plug and play.
Now I’m not the usual demographic for Goal Zero. They usually cater for hikers, campers, van life extraordinaires, people looking to go off grid or people looking for an emergency power solution. I’m just a weirdo wanting to charge all his handheld devices using the sun, but after using the setup I can really see the potential of getting a larger solar generator and using it to charge more things.
How I use the Goal Zero Briefcase panels and Yeti200x Solar Generator.
Although I have the more portable briefcase panels, they pretty much stay where they are, tucked away open on the terrace. I have a plastic box which I drilled a hole into which I run the 8mm cable through. The Solar generator sits in this box under the panels to ensure it’s dry, although Im pretty sure living under the panels alone is shelter enough from the elements.
The generator goes in first thing in the morning and I take it out when the sun goes down. Depending on the weather it will come out 85–100% full which is great ! Working from home I was able to time just how long it took to go from 2% to 100% on a seriously hot day! It took just over 3 hours ! This falls in line with Goal Zero’s estimate of 3–4 hours.
After my first day of solar harvesting (I cant get enough of that term, I sound like space farmer) I then experimented how best to distribute the energy. First I plugged my phone directly into the 2A USB port. It worked a charm and fast charged my phone to 100% in a couple of hours, then I charged my iPad, then iPad mini. Goal Zero states that a fully charged Yeti 200x can charge your phone 16 times and your tablet 6 times over and I definitely believe it. They also suggest you can charge a 50Wh laptop 4 times over.
I plugged an almost dead MacBook Pro directly into the AC port of the Yeti and it only charged up to 80% before the Yeti gave out. I must add though that I was using my Macbook intensively at the same time while I was working, using different creative design software simultaneously, so I am sure I went above and beyond the 50Wh example in regards to power consumption. Perhaps I should try and charge it while it is off and see how many times this can be done.
What I found was I did not have enough time between sunset and bed time to get as much of this generated electricity used. I would leave things to charge overnight and in the morning when it was time to hook the solar generator up to the panels again it still had 35% charge remaining. I couldn’t utilise the electricity fast enough! Goal Zero do have specific expansion batteries to store electricity which would work in this case, however they only work with the Solar Power Stations 1000w and up, and my little 200x is just a toy compared with these big boys.
I did find a solution which works perfectly. I have two 10,000mAh Yukuma fast charging powerbanks that fully charge in 30 mins. I don’t know why these bad boys are not more popular as they really do fully charge in 30 mins and I charge my phone multiple times. They are a little large and heavy but really are a life saver if you travel a lot.
I take my fully charged Yeti and then use the AC to charge the Yukuma power banks. In half an hour one is fully charged and the Yeti has dropped about 30% in power. In an hour I have two fully charged powerbanks and around 35% still in the Yeti tank to charge my handheld devices overnight. The following morning when the Yeti is being charged in the day I then use the power banks for charging on the go and then I repeat. I have ordered another Yukuma powerbank to add to the mix and make things work a little more efficiently.
Conclusion
With this setup as long as I keep a powerbank with me for emergencies, my phone will happily see out its life using only the sun for power.
The one thing I have had to do is change my mindset in regards to electricity. I just used to plug things in and they worked. I would charge my phone in the car, or at my desk at work without a second thought. I generally didn’t really think, or care, where the electricity was from or how much I used. Now, I curse under my breath if I accidentally plug my phone into an electricity outlet without thinking. I whisper to myself like a madman, “Nope, I’ve got sun energy for that.”
It is clear in the future we will have more and more devices that will need charging. With the advances of technology batteries can be charged to higher capacities in shorter times. Look at this Yukuma powerbank for example. It’s now a couple of years old but in 30 mins it’s fully charged and I bring it to my devices to charge and not my device to an electric source, I now charge “on the go.”
I have a vision that in the not so distant future “electricity sharing” will be a thing. Instead of someone coming up to you asking for a lighter, they will come up to you and ask if you have any juice to spare… electricity, not steroids! If people become portable power suppliers it’s not such a long stretch that the source of the power will come more into question.
“Where’s your juice from? Hydro? Coal? Gas? Nuclear?…”
“Nah.. I’ve got that Tesla A grade…”
In regards to the next steps of my experiment, perhaps I can see just how many things can run on this setup before it would need to be expanded. It would also be interesting to see if it makes a difference financially to have handheld and small electric devices charged solely by the sun and compare my electricity bill on sun juice vs using only the grid.
But for now, should you bump into me and your phone’s running out of battery, I’ve got some of the finest home harvested sun energy that I would be happy to share with you.
