In my quest to move to solar energy, I calculated my home's constant and sporadic energy needs, and the most frugal way to get a small solar system up and running by myself.

Converting to Solar - Small Scale Case Study

I got a very tiny solar LED keychain light. it was all of two bucks on amazon. It's basically a small solar panel with three LED bulbs on one side and a keychain fob.

It works very nicely. bright pinpoint light and I never have to worry about a battery. I keep it on the outside hardware on my purse.

I am very excited! Tomorrow my new 15 watt solar panel kit is supposed to arrive, and my deep cycle battery will get here later in the week. This is good - it will give me a few days to mess around with the kit (the panel, cables and charge controller) before actually having to put it all together. I should decide where I am going to put the panel, and what appliances I will start devoting to it's output. FUN!

In fun news, at ALCO today I picked up a small table fan that plugs into a USB port. It draws only 2.5 watts. This is great. I can plug it into my laptop. And the best part is I can run it directly off my solar USB charger!

I just popped that puppy into my pocket electronics solar charger (that link goes to my full length review on this website). This means I have a fan with a basically unlimited power source. At least on a sunny day, which tend to be the hot ones.

I am thrilled!

Next: to play with my new solar panel kit, which just arrived!

I have my first large solar panel!!! I need to set aside some time to really set it up - tomorrow I have a full day out of town.

In the meantime, I forgot to fully charge my phone last night, and i spent today out of the house. So i brought my phone solar charger along with me. When my phone did get below critical, i was able to charge it halfway with just the stored energy that I had in it from the last time i put it in the sun (weeks ago). Nice!

There is really no reason for a phone to die with a little $30 solar charger like mine.