6 Every Day Products Solar Power is Changing

Garden Furniture

Lighting your garden can be a pain, but this is something that solar is changing and it’s doing it through your garden furniture. Everything from chairs, tables, plant pots and garden accessories such as Tiki and paper lamps can be juiced through solar power to allow them to light up at night. High fashion garden tables are now seeing LEDs fashioned into their glass, or around their edges, while entire chairs can be made to light up: all this just from adding a few tiny solar panels.

Swimwear

When you hit the beach, chances are you spend at least some of your time soaking up the sun and working on your tan, but have you ever stopped to think how much solar energy you could be generating if only you were wearing solar panels? Andrew Schneider has and so he created the solar powered bikini. Made from photovoltaic film panels and with a built in USB port, the solar bikini can charge your iPod or keep your drink cold while you tan, so you need never waste precious solar rays again. 

Fridges

Getting refrigerators to work in hot countries with next to no access to traditional electricity infrastructures is no simple task, but Emily Cummins from Namibia has changed that with her solar powered fridge. Constructed from two cylinders with a wet material such as sand or soil packed in between them, the fridge works when the sun’s rays heat the wet material. The water then evaporates which removes all heat from the inner cylinder and keeps its contents at six degrees.

Bricks

You might think you’re having your leg pulled on this one, but even bricks are getting a solar update. Solar bricks can be used in small buildings or walkways and will absorb the sun’s rays during the day to create a beautiful lit walkway, or eye-popping real estate feature, at night.

Watches

One of the simplest ways solar power is being used to change an everyday object on this list is in wrist watches. Solar powered watches simply do away with traditional watch batteries and replace them with solar panels around the watch’s face.

Grave Stones

You might be wondering how on earth solar power could be utilized in a plain old stone grave stone, but you’ll need to think a little outside the box on this one. While traditional grave stones would feature just a name and an epitaph, the E-Tomb is a new product that is capable of storing all the deceased’s online information, such as pictures and information from your social networks and blogs. It can then be accessed, and added to, by visitors through their smartphone. The whole thing is powered by solar and connects through Bluetooth technology.
Solar power is changing the way we power our lives and if these solar versions of even the most mundane objects are anything to go by, this is one energy insurrection that doesn’t look to be slowing down.

Author Bio:
Jessica is a solar energy fanatic, with a passion for discovering new ways to utilise the sun's rays effectively in today's world. She works for Solar Contact, a company which sources solar installers, and loves finding new ways to go green.