Solar lights have become more and more popular as people look for quick and flexible ways to provide lighting to outdoor spaces while reducing their energy bills. The great thing about solar lights is their flexibility. Unlike mains power lights, which require a considerable amount of electrical and landscaping work to install, solar lighting can be set up in minutes and moved around with ease.

At night they will turn on automatically and turn off automatically in the morning so they can charge up again for the night ahead. Solar powered lights are now a serious rival to mains power lights. Lights powered by solar energy are bright, reliable, easy to install, free to run and great for the environment.

The Rise of Solar Garden Lights

Solar garden lights used to be a bit of a joke, but in the last 10 years they have become a serious rival to mains powered lighting. We put this down to 5 main reasons.

1. Better technology
Using the sun’s power to generate lighting has only really become possible since the birth of the LED (Light Emitting Diode). A typical LED needs a 10th of the power that would be required to run an incandescent bulb of the same brightness. If solar LED lights used incandescent bulbs instead, the solar panel and battery pack would need to be 10 times bigger which would make the light 10 times uglier and 10 times more expensive!

Ironically, solar panel technology hasn’t really moved on that much in recent years, but advances in LED and battery technology have and it is these two developments which have improved solar lighting the most.

2. Better products
A select group of UK suppliers now offer high quality solar lights that can work year round in the UK, but this wasn’t always the case. Solar lighting used to be in a rut because retailers were only selling cheap and unreliable solar powered lights. Customers would buy them only to be disappointed by the brightness, reliability and durability of the product. Over time solar power lights built up a bad reputation which has only started to turn around recently.

3. Better choice
The solar lighting category has expanded massively in recent years. 10 years ago there was only really one type of solar garden light which was the bog standard ‘spike into the ground’ type of fitting. Now we have solar spotlights, solar security lights, solar flood lights, solar shed lights, solar fairy lights, solar path lights, solar lanterns, solar decking lights, solar driveway lights, solar patio lights and solar wall lights all becoming common place in homes and gardens up and down the country.

4. Better environmental awareness
The last 10 years has also seen a greater awareness of renewable energy, global warming and other environmental issues which have prompted more and more home owners to look at eco lighting solutions for their home and garden.

5. Rising energy prices
The last 10 years has seen the cost of oil and electricity reach stratospheric levels. A solar security light might not rival a 500W halogen fitting, but it can rival a 100W fitting making it more than bright enough to do the job. You can install a solar security light yourself so there’s no need to call out an electrician and once it’s up, it’s free to run.

Indoor Solar Lighting?

Solar lights are mainly designed to work outdoors where they can be positioned in direct sunlight. Some customers try to charge products indoors on windowsills, but this can be problematic for two reasons. Firstly, if a product is on a window ledge it can only receive direct sunlight through the window which drastically limits the amount of light it receives as the sun passes across the sky. If it was outside it would capture direct sunlight throughout the day. Secondly, and more importantly, modern glass filters many of the light waves needed to make solar work. Some modern double glazed windows can reduce solar efficiency by up to 90%! This means that you would need to charge a light for 9 days inside on a window ledge to achieve the same level of charge as 1 day outside. Charging solar lights under artificial lights is also a waste of time and electricity. This may work on a small solar calculator which requires very little energy to work, but you will not get any meaningful charge into a solar powered light by charging it under a light bulb.

Solar Lights That Work Indoors

Our new Dual-power Solar Fairy Lights can work inside your home as well as outside. When placed outside they will charge from the sun just like any other solar light, but they can also be used indoors like normal mains powered fairy lights. Simply plug them into your computer or a USB plug adaptor using the supplied cable and you’re good to go.