I have started gathering materials for the project. I am contacting various manufacturers to get different lights ranging from fluorescent 12 volt lamps to LED replacement bulbs for normal lamps to CFL energy efficient replacement bulbs.

I have a few 12 volt 6Ah batteries that will be used in this project. That should be 72 Watt hours. So, theoretically, based on the battery rating, I should be able to run a 12 Watt lamp for 6 hours or two lamps for three hours on a full charge. Now, again a theory here, if I use an 18 Watt solar panel, running all day in the winter, I should get about ten hours of sunlight. This should be sufficient to keep the battery charged. Cloudy days will change the amount of energy available.

Let's assume 50% sunlight for those ten hours then we have about 90 Watt hours to use up at night.

An average energy efficient CFL replacement bulb is rated for about 13 Watts usage and gives out light equivalent to a 60 Watt incandescent lamp. Add loss for an inverter and that brings us up to about 15 Watts per hour. This should still give us about 6 hours of light on a single battery, solar panel, inverter and lamp. Again, all in theory. The tests results will show how close I am.

Well, last night I got home and found my solar panel on the floor. It had fallen out of the window sometime during the day, so the battery obviously did not get fully charged.

But, I decided to hook up my floor lamp to an inverter, which was hooked up to the battery. I was only in the living room for an hour, but the light worked quite well. I am only using a simple 12 Volt 6 Ah alarm battery. It was sitting at 12.5 Volts when I started and dropped to 12.20 and held there while I was using the light. The light was the 50 Watt CFL lamp I just bought.

Later, when I get a proper solar panel, I will put it up on the roof for better charging. Right now, it is only getting about 50% of the available light. It is a good test to see what I can do with that little bit of energy though.

Anyway, I propped the solar panel up last night and am anxious to see what tonight will bring. I will be entertaining guests, so that will really be a test.

If you use solar energy and energy efficient lighting, cooking or heating, you may be qualified for tax and rebate incentives.

I will list anything here that may be helpful. Please feel free to contribute to this page.

Here is a link to the database of state incentives for renewables & efficiency:

http://www.dsireusa.org/

You may be able to purchase you solar items tax free and also get up to 30% of your investment offset by the government.