PV Gap

Troy Said:

Can solar lights be charged by leaving them under an electric light? If not why not?

We Answered:

Whilst the answer is yes it does raise the interesting question of how efficient it is.

If you turn the lights on just to charge you solar panels then this would be clearly inefficient.

If you have the lights on because you need the lighting (because it is too dark to do your desired activity - possibly because it is cloudy outside!) then you are merely harvesting some of the waste light energy that is illuminating the room.

However, that waste energy is converting itself into heat or bouncing around the room to make it brighter.

Thus is you either have to turn on another light, because your solar panels are absorbing too much of the reflected light, or you have to turn up the heating, because you solar panels are absorbing too much of the light that was being converted to heat, then once again it becomes inefficient