Harnessing solar energy has come a long way with just a few decades of steadily improving the technology surrounding it. Efficient collection through better solar cells means that there's more energy gathered per surface area of a solar panel. Batteries have also improved significantly that what people have now is incomparable to something that was considered a breakthrough two decades ago. Batteries can now have an automatic function wherein they stop taking in power once their stores have reached a certain threshold, making it unlikely to overcharge them. On the other hand, they can no longer be emptied fully because of the same automatic function. The only way they can be fully drained of power is if their reserves (typically at around ten percent) are used up from weeks of inactivity.
Because of these new technologies, solar energy has become more accessible to regular citizens. This has presented the option for a lot of people to even go off the grid, depending entirely on solar energy to run their electronics including refrigerators. Obviously, this has some exceptions particularly households where there is far too much energy being used with numerous computer units, air conditioning system and heaters.
On the other hand, you need to know that solar power has indeed become quite popular that it's even considered as the better option for a lot of industrial lighting uses. There are industrial solar street lights that have taken over conventional street lights. Communities that choose to replace their existing street lights with solar powered ones acknowledge the fact that the loss of taking down their existing ones is nothing compared to the cost-cutting from the efficiency of solar street lights. It saves expenses on energy cost, as well as from repair and maintenance.
When solar powered street lights or parking lot lights malfunction, which practically happens quite rarely, it doesn't take much to replace whatever components need replacing. It's also a breeze to service just one solar powered street light because the fact that they are not connected to the power grid means that they are independent from one another. Not requiring shutting down other lights in the area when one break down in the middle of the night is surely a welcome benefit for maintenance personnel.
When a solar street light malfunctions, it's generally because of one electronic component failing or have exhausted its service expectancy like the battery or the solar cells. The lighting fixtures of these street lights are no longer as vulnerable to malfunctions as it used to because most of the newer ones are LED, which is leaps in front of CFL light bulbs. It's best to learn more about different solar powered street light models and get a better understanding of just how great these are when it comes to providing cheap and efficient lighting. The different models found here at streetlights-solar.com have comprehensive descriptions that can also provide a contextual understanding of the different technical terms one may encounter with trying to understand how solar powered industrial lights work.
