How to Use Solar Energy

Solar energy can be used to power almost everything now, and it can be used at home with or without solar panels. Some of the most common and effective ways to use solar energy are to capture it without having to buy expensive or complicated panels for your roof. You can use small, inexpensive solar panels to power laptops, lights, and even use solar ovens to cook your food.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Cooking With the Sun

1. Start searching for information on solar cooking. Solar cookers and solar ovens have come a long way since the aluminum foil pizza boxes, and are capable of cooking just about anything these days. Dollar for dollar, solar cookers and ovens are the best use of solar devices. Once they are purchased or constructed, no more costs will be associated with the food that you cook in them.

2. Research the best kind of solar oven for you. For example, if you live in a climate where you have sun pretty much all year long, your options are much broader than if you live in a northern climate that has limited sun in the winter. If you have strong sun all year long, you can use box ovens, panel cookers, or parabolic cookers almost all year long. If you live in a place with really low sun in the winter, you'll want to get a box oven or parabolic cooker that you can adjust to capture the sun to get the most out of it during the winter.

3. Study the plans for making your own solar oven if you want to make your own. You can access many plans online for different solar designs. The first link at the bottom has the most comprehensive ideas for making your own solar ovens.

4. Cook your food in a solar oven once you have made it or purchased it. There are some solar cookbooks that will help you get started, but generally, recipes for solar cooked food are almost identical to stove or oven cooked food. You can really cut your energy bill using solar cooking. You may see your grocery bill go down, too, because even the cheapest, toughest cut of meat cooks up beautifully in a solar oven.

Using Small Solar Panels to Power Your Laptop or Household Lights

5. Search online for solar battery chargers. They used to be rare, but now there are many companies that are making solar panels and battery chargers for all sorts of batteries.

6. Select the solar battery charger that will work with the majority of your recharging needs. When choosing a charger for multiple battery types, make sure that it has adapters that will work with your phones, batteries, iPod or MP3 players.

7. Charge your batteries on sunny days. Even lightly overcast days will allow some charging to go on.

Choosing Solar Lighting for Inside and Out

8. Light your home inside and out with solar lights. It is especially easy to light outdoors with solar, and the choice of lighting is huge. You can use solar powered lights to decorate for the holidays, as well as motion detector lighting, garden, garage, or shed lighting, and even garden pathway lighting.

9. Choose solar powered AA or AAA batteries if you already have battery operated lights outdoors that you want to switch to solar batteries.

10. 

    Find solar lamps that you can use in the house. If you can't find the solar lights that you set outside during the day to charge, don't worry. Some people have been able to buy the hanging solar lamps used outdoors, place the charging panels in a sunny window, and have room lighting all night long.

Tips & Warnings

• Solar cooking and lighting are the easiest ways to use solar energy without making a big investment in panels and batteries. You can even buy solar radios that work outside when the sun is shining.

Resources

• Source for solar cookers and oven plans
• Solar battery chargers
• Indoor solar LED lamps