Solar Powered WiFi
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on August 27, 2007 at 3:24:47 PM
This is a good idea to use solar power for WiFi transmitters. Most public WiFi spots are out in the sun anyway.
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Since solar energy can't be harvested all the time, the panel is actually far larger than would be necessary to simply power the router. In Florida, which gets about 4.5 hours of peak solar energy a day, Solis installs a 220-watt solar panel that measures about 4 feet by 5 feet. Ordinarily, a router only needs about 24 watts of power, he said. All that extra power goes to recharging the batteries, which run all night. The batteries in the system let the routers survive cloudy periods and can actually keep the router going for seven days without a recharge, Reynolds said.