Friday, March 22nd, 2013
It is that time of year again, but you would not know it from the weather outside in Washington, D.C. It has been cold and breezy, yet the sun is shining and if you have your solar panels out, you have been producing lots of solar energy. We have just updated our site with a new selection of new home solar panels, so if you are in the market, or just want to compare various options, then please let us know. If you don’t have the big bucks to shell out for a home solar panel system, then you may want to think about other solar offerings. As soon as the sun comes out, people start thinking solar powered lights and solar fountains. Every year, the solar light options get increasingly better, more efficient, brighter and more attractive. The SolarTown learning section provides an overview of solar powered lights, what applications they can be used for, a brief description of the lights, and how long they will work when operating at a full charge. Probably the most popular lights are solar path lights, but solar lamp posts are also quite popular.
Tags: home solar panel, home solar panels, solar fountains, solar lamp posts, solar light, solar lights, solar panel system, solar powered lights
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Monday, November 26th, 2012
Are you looking for green or eco friendly gifts to give for the holidays? Every year, we at SolarTown are compiling a list of some gifts that you may want to consider. Take a look at our solar gifts that we are recommending this year in our learning section.The first gift you can give is to educate yourself and your friends about the power of solar energy. My family and I went to the Science Museum in Baltimore over the Thanksgiving weekend. It is easy to forget that the sun is 1.3 million (yes, million) times as large as the Earth. If you open up the sun and dump over a million earths in it, you can begin to imagine that the sun carries a pretty large punch. The challenge is of course how to garner all of that energy. The answer is that we don’t need to garner very much of that energy to meet our energy needs; we just have to do it efficiently.
Tags: Eco Friendly Gifts, home solar panel, home solar panel system, home solar panels, Solar Energy Systems, solar fountains, solar gifts, solar lamp post, solar landscape, solar lights, solar panel system, solar wall
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Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
After every recent emergency or disaster, our customers call and ask us what off grid solutions might help them prepare for the next event, whether it is here in the U.S.or somewhere else. The short answer is that solar energy products can be part of your emergency preparedness plan. Just ask Haitians who were able to cook their food on solar ovens after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Or you might want to talk with relief workers who are able to maintain vaccines in a solar refrigerator in Africa. We are supplying the U.S. armed forces with portable solar modules for power of small equipment in combat zones.
Tags: emergency kits, emergency preparedness plan, Portable Solar Modules, Solar Energy Products, solar modules, solar ovens, solar power products, solar radios, Solar Refrigerator, solar shower
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Monday, October 22nd, 2012
You may have heard of flower power in the 1960s and now in the 2010s we have solar power—that you can wear. You may already have purchased from us a solar bag or solar backpack, but soon you may be able to purchase solar couture. Several companies have come out with solar-powered articles of clothing meant for outdoor adventurers. This solar innovation is coming from an unlikely source, the designer and stylist behind Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress, Nicola Formichetti. Formichetti will be releasing his new line of solar-powered clothing online in mid-2013. Not only will his designs allow their wearer to make a unique fashion statement, they will also charge the wearer’s cellphone.
Tags: solar backpack, solar bag, solar clothing, solar panels, solar power, solar powered clothing
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Monday, August 27th, 2012
As most loyal SolarTown customers know, we try to get you the best guidance on selecting solar energy products from our selection of home solar panels to solar water pumps and other products. We recently played with the idea of doing the same thing with our selection of solar inverters, but came to the conclusion that the inverter market may not have as many objective standards or features to make that kind of comparison as useful as with solar modules. Some excellent brands, like Outback, don’t stack up in the numbers because they are specialized in other areas like being installable in almost any tropical or harsh environment or switching between on and off grid mode. That said, sometimes the numbers have a point, and we want to share that point with you so at least you have some information on which to base your decision of which solar inverter to choose for certain size solar panel systems. So here is our first rundown of Solar Inverters: Best in Show!
Tags: home solar panel, home solar panels, Solar Energy Products, solar inverter, solar inverters, solar modules, solar panel system, solar water pumps
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Home Panels | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 6th, 2012
The summer is coming to an end but you still haven’t bought your solar landscape lights? Every year we see the same trend: our customers purchase their solar powered lights from late spring to the end of summer. Well, it is already light in the summer and you need light in the winter! So now is the time to purchase your solar lamp post lights to lighten your walkways during the winter, solar patio lights to take advantage of our outdoors during the fall or other outdoor solar lights. And all year around you will enjoy solar garden fountains.
Tags: solar garden lights, solar lamp post, solar lamp post lights, solar landscape lighting, solar lighting, solar lights, solar outdoor lighting, solar path, solar patio, solar patio lights, solar power, solar powered lights, solar security
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Monday, July 30th, 2012
If you want to buy solar panels, you most likely want to connect them to the grid. But there are some homeowners and others who want to be or need to be off the grid. There are the folks who have a cabin in the mountains and there is no grid anywhere close by. There are the farmers in Northern California who are growing, well, let’s just say they don’t want anyone to know how much electricity they are using. There may also be some homeowners who are on the grid but want a battery back-up system for emergencies or natural disasters. For these solar energy users, getting the right home solar panels is the easy part. The critical component of their off grid solar energy system is the solar battery. Choosing the correct solar batteries and understanding how to maintain and take care of them can be a challenge. In a recent series of learning articles, we have tried to demystify solar batteries.
Tags: battery storage, charge controllers, home solar panels, lead acid batteries, off grid solar systems, rural electrification, solar batteries, solar battery, solar energy batteries, Solar Energy Products, solar energy storage, Solar Energy System, solar home systems
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Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012
Just a few feet from a tree that had fallen in the storm, I saw some other workers who had nothing to do with the clean-up—they were installing a solar panel system. They had somehow managed to maneuver around the fallen trees and the strange traffic patterns as the signal lights all over the city were not working. I am particularly interested in this installation, for if you are an avid reader of this blog, you will know that not far away in the neighborhood of Cleveland Park, the historic preservation committee voted down a solar energy system on a home not far from where I live. Our neighborhood, however, is not part of a historic preservation district so the homeowners have a freer hand in placing a solar panel system on their homes.We also carry at SolarTown other off grid products that will allow you to weather the storm. A solar refrigerator can be used to maintain your food, and one model of a solar fridge allows you to maintain medicines. If you are digging out any everyone on your street doesn’t have power, if you had a solar oven, you could prepare your food so long as the sun is out. And of course, if you can’t live without your computer, we have solar bags or small portable solar backup systems to provide just enough juice for your computers or handheld devices.
Tags: columbia heights, solar bags, solar energy products for disasters, Solar Energy System, Solar Freezer, solar ovens, solar panel system, solar panels, Solar Refrigerator
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Thursday, June 7th, 2012
We changed gears somewhat this week and attended the Sixth Annual Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) being held here in Washington D.C. Some of the manufacturers whose products we represent at SolarTown such as Voltaic Systems with its solar bags and Sun Danzer with its solar refrigerators were there to show how their products have an important role to play in helping countries develop and saving lives. You don’t believe that solar fridges can keep critical medicines safe. Well, think again, as this solar vaccine refrigerator has been pre-qualified by the World Health Organization and has undergone rigorous testing. There are many other applications of solar energy to the developing world such as solar lights and solar battery chargers, which can provide a lifeline to those living off the grid throughout the world.
Tags: charge controllers, development forum, solar batteries, solar energy refrigerator, Solar Freezer, Solar Fridge, solar ovens, solar panel, solar power refrigerator, Solar Refrigerator, solar refrigerators, SunDanzer, vaccine refrigerator
Posted in Solar Around the World, Solar Energy Products, Solar Events | Comments Off
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
We like the microinverter for residential solar panel systems and we respect Enphase’s market leadership. Just as the elevator was synonymous with the lift and Xerox was synonymous with photocopiers, Enphase has become synonymous with microinverters. Most of the residential installations of solar panels we see are with microinverters. As Enphase has extended its warranty, the microinverter has become an integral part of home solar panel systems. All of that is well and good, but we are wondering if Enphase is innovating into obsolescence by treating its microinverters as electronics, fundamentally changing its product every few months. We like the Enphase microinverter, but wish that they would spend less time on innovation and more time on improving its current products.
Tags: Enphase, Enphase microinverter, home solar panel, home solar panel systems, Microinverters, residential installations, solar inverters, solar microinverters, solar panel system
Posted in Solar Energy Products, Solar Home Panels | 1 Comment »
