We get a lot of questions about how the exact location for the “PG&E Solar Schools program Solar on a Stick” gets selected. The story about how the spot was picked at the Presidio Middle School in San Francisco (right on the north side of Geary) illustrates how this process is a little bit science and a little bit math with some important diplomatic negotiations thrown in.

Science: The solar panels are installed at the top of a pole and angled toward the sun. They have to face south and there should be nothing shading the panels. All of the PG&E Solar Schools projects are installed as close to the same conditions as possible to make sure that schools are able to compare/contrast solar systems with location and weather as the dynamic variables affecting performance. What is under the panels and around the base of the pole doesn’t really matter much, but we never want anything between the panels and the sun. There are normally a lot of areas available at schools that work well for the installation, but urban schools can present a bit more of a challenge. We don’t want to impact playground space and need to work around existing structures. We use a device called a Solmetric SunEye that measures the path of the sun and basically tells us whether or not each location is good, bad, or in between. I have to tell you that Alyssa usually does this so I am going to let her explain the devices that she uses to “test the sun.”

Thanks Glen. In the past, we used a device called a Solar Pathfinder, which has been around since the 70’s and still works well. Many get a chuckle out of the fact that I refer to the 70’s pathfinder device as “old school” but still good! In fact, we often start with this device as the lower tech (but still accurate) tool.

We walk around the school campus, and discuss which areas:

1. Are preferred by the administration (this is where the diplomatic negotiations start – everybody has a different opinion, and we need consensus before we can move forward),
2. Are relatively unobstructed by trees or structure shade and “safe” from flying objects (other than the sun’s rays),
3. Are relatively close to where we need to connect the system to a panel to feed the clean solar power into the classrooms.

We triangulate between these three necessary inputs, and take measurements at each site. When we get close to one or two potential locations, we take measurements with a Solmetric SunEye – this is the high-tech updated tool. Below is a sample of an image taken from Presidio Middle School. The lines represent hours of the day and months of the year – this site, as you can see, is pretty darn close to perfect! But the story doesn’t end here.

Math: We have to make sure that the installation is not too far from the electrical box where we connect the solar array with the PG&E electricity grid, and that the numbers work (see the Solmetric chart above). It is expensive and disruptive to run wires underneath asphalt and concrete, and even to trench in a grass yard. There can be some loss of electricity when the wire carrying the solar energy has to travel a long distance. Some of the “solar on sticks” had to be put pretty far from buildings just because of shading and other issues, but we try and measure the distance between the site where the pole might go, where the PG&E service comes in, and where our closest electrical subpanel is located. We also can’t be within 10 feet of a retaining wall or structure because of code restrictions. We weight all of the necessary inputs, and then talk as a group about the preferred location. As you can guess, not all of the inputs can be quantified – future plans for the site, personal opinions on aesthetics (including those of neighbors), and other topics come in to the discussion.

Compromise: Finally, we have to take the school’s staff and students and activities into consideration. We won’t put the panels in front of a walkway so the students would have to walk around it, and we don’t want to put the pole in the middle of a baseball field or soccer field or basketball court. We need to keep the fire lanes clear. Our favorite spots are unobstructed spots in the front of a school or near the science classrooms so that the students can see the solar panels everytime they walk in or from their desks in the science wing where they might be looking at the online data monitoring site. Ultimately, there are often non scientific and non mathematical compromises that determine the final location. And this is where we get back to Presidio Middle School, and finish our story about X marking a spot.

The Presidio Middle School is a huge and beautiful historic looking building built in 1930 that sits off of Geary Street in San Francisco. There is a wonderful gymnasium and expansive playground. The walls and roof remind you how we used to build schools a very long time ago- we built them to stand for a long time, and the artistry of the day was included in the building lines. I love the look of that school.

When we first visited the school we met with school administrators and we selected a spot for the pole based on a number of the factors that I talked about above. The location was good and everyone present agreed to it. But then Alyssa got an update from Assistant Principal John Greener. He said the woman in charge of physical education opposed the spot for the solar on a stick installation. She had plans for a long jump track in that area and the pole would interfere with her plans. She had not been at the original meeting, but she was now voicing her opposition to the area of the playground where we were about to do the installation.

So Alyssa and I met John Greener at the school office and he called several of the science teachers and the PE teacher to the playground. Alyssa and I walked around and Alyssa used her device to make a mental note of the locations where the pole could go and then we all met in a group discussion in the middle of the playground. We talked about the science issues and the math issues and then we got around to the location we had chosen originally. The first location seemed impossible, but an interesting thing happened. The PE teacher started asking about all of the various locations where the pole could go and a funny thing happened. She made a suggestion for a location and we all looked at it and everyone nodded, “that works.” It was in fact a better location from a science perspective.

For me, the spot did not look like it would be acceptable to the woman in charge of the playgrounds because it was in the middle of the playground. But what none of us had realized was that the location she offered to us was in between a number of play areas. While it is centrally located, it does not interfere with any individual play area. We had all tried to find a location that was a little “out of the way” of the play areas and she had come back with a much better location for us that is in the middle of the entire playground and very visible to traffic on Geary. We could not have picked a better location. (I did ask everyone from John Greener to science teachers to the PE teacher to Alyssa to point to the spot so that we had evidence that this was in fact the location, but I did it more for fun than to resolve any future disputes. The fight was over and the compromise worked out so much better for the project than any of our original choices. The day Alyssa and I drove to the school it sounded like a fight was brewing, but in the end everyone was laughing and happy. Science and math had won a victory…on the playground.

Story submitted by Glen Kizer

Recently I have spent a lot of time at Oakland High School because our solar school team has been working to install a system as a part of the PG&E Solar Schools Program. The system is in and there will be a solar celebration this spring, but I have been privileged to go into the school and to get to talk to some of their students and staff. What I have found is that Oakland High School (OHS) has its own solar school team and it is working well.

I spoke to a number of their AP Science Classes and two (2) block classes of 10th grade biology and I also spoke at their Science Teachers Meeting after school. Katie Noonan and Kevin Jordan, who are co-Directors of the Environmental Science Academy at OHS, asked me to talk to their students and fellow science teachers. The Environmental Science Academy is open to all OHS students and has been in existence for 10 years.  They receive special funding from the State of California and they take field trips with an environmental slant to them.  Ms. Noonan is trying to organize a tour of a nuclear power plant. 

Everyone is so excited about the fact that their school was accepted in the PG&E Solar Schools Program. Katie and Kevin have their classrooms directly across from one another and for some of the class periods they would combine students in one room or another. Both Katie and Kevin were nice to ask me to come in, and while it appeared that I was running the classes, the two of them kept things on track and were in complete control of the direction of the discussions. I realized how some really good teachers make teaching look easy, but after staying in those classrooms for hours, I also realized how really hard it is to teach. If I were the President, teachers would make more money. The students asked questions all day and the Oakland HS science teachers all seem extremely intelligent and completely committed to their students and to the sciences. Some of the teachers have been to the NEED training and more are going. It is obvious from their excitement that solar energy will become a big part of their science curricula.

In fact, a teacher, Ceasar Lopez, has a solar car contest in his 9th grade science classes every year and his class won a nation wide competition using a solar powered train.  And Ms Noonan once had a student design a solar powered water treatment plant.  This school was already excited about solar energy and now they have their own “solar on a stick” that makes electricity for the school every day. 

On several occasions I have also been able to meet with Principal Mary Scott who may be the perfect principal. She is tall and confident and appears to be both strong and yet very nice. Principal Scott is also excited about the PG&E partnership at her school. She also talks about how nice the “solar guys” were and how they moved some lunch tables for her and how well they cleaned up the spot after the installation was complete.

Ms. Scott arranged for the pole to go in next to one of the primary doors so a huge percentage of her students see the solar panels several times a day. It is also positioned just outside the science department. She is committed to the solar project and everyone understands this at the school. The administration is completely supportive of this project and that is always important because the students and the faculty need to know the business side of the school has their back. At OHS, the administration is behind them.

If the students, teachers, and school administration are three (3) of the teammates in this project, then the final player on the OHS Solar Team may be security. There is always a threat of vandalism at any school and the solar array does sometimes attract vandals. In the hundreds of installations that I have been involved with there have been almost no acts of violence against any of the solar projects, but there have been a few and it has to be considered every time we do an installation.

At OHS, the security guard near the solar panels is named Tesfai Haile, (I took a picture of him after the pole went in and then another after the panels were installed…a kind of before and after.) The first time I parked near the spot where the pole was to be installed, I worried my car would be towed, but Tesfai told me not to worry and I didn’t. After that, whenever I visit the school, I go to the back and look for Tesfai and he talks about how much better the weather is in California than Ohio (where I am from) and then we talk about solar and the students and security. Like Principal Mary Scott, he is nice and is always smiling, but he also appears to be strong and smart and is constantly watching over the school yard looking for trouble. But he is not only protecting the school, he is also watching out over those solar panels. I am sure PG&E feels better about the fact that Tesfai is watching out over their gift.

So, Oakland High School has a working solar electricity system that will help their students understand how 100% clean electricity can be generated right there on school property. Teachers will use the PV system to help teach science and math and the administration can help introduce renewable energy to the neighborhood. And all of them now understand how working together as a team they can accomplish something that none of them could have done on their own. This is a great project at a great school with absolutely wonderful people and I believe more great things are coming for their “solar team.”

With school budgets shrinking as fast as our polar ice caps, it is not always easy to come up with hands-on solar projects. Thanks to NEED, the National Energy Education Development project, we used their plans to build the fastest, lowest cost, most portable solar oven not on the market. Let me introduce Sydney, a bright, social, and witty 8th grader going to school in Paradise California. Here she recounts a solar project she did two years ago:

Hello my name Sydney Zimmerman I am 13 and an 8th grader at Paradise Intermediate. I am also a teacher’s assistant for Evergreen 6 – an amazing solar school. I was enrolled at Evergreen 6 in the 6th grade where I experienced solar energy for the first time. Mr. Holman fascinated all of us with solar energy. Well I am not a fan of science but solar energy was a subject that I was amazed with and still am. Just like the rest of Evergreen, we were anticipating the arrival of our new solar system. There was so much to learn about. We were having different lessons about solar energy everyday. With little examples everywhere there was so much to take in all at once. Evergreen taught all of us how we can cook using solar energy. One way they taught us how to cook with solar energy was using Solar Hot Dog Cookers made from Pringles cans. It was so much fun and really easy to make these cookers.

From the NEED Project Instructions (Download here- need-solar-hot-dog-cooker.pdf):

• Cut Pringles Can. Cut a 7′ line going horizontal on the side of the can then on each end of that line cut a 3′ line going vertical. Bend the flaps back but do not remove the flaps from can for they are important in cooking your hot dogs.
• Cover opening on side of the can with a transparency film and tape film into place.
• Make two small holes – one on the metal end of the can and another on the lid. Remove lid from can.
• Put hot dog on skewer. Fit the skewer through the hole on the bottom of the can. Then put on the lid fitting the other end of the skewer through the hole on the lid. The hot dog should now be in your cooker.
• Place the Solar Hot Dog Cooker into direct sunlight. Making sure the flaps are reflecting energy onto the hot dog.
• Time how long it takes to cook your hot dog.
• When Hot dog in cooked remove out of Can and enjoy your delicious Solar Cooked meal!

* You Can Experiment with your cookers using other high light sources.

Two useful tips we have learned at Evergreen over the years:

1. To make the hole in the metal end of the can, gather up a nail and hammer. Place the plastic lid over the metal end of the can. Use the small plastic dot in the center of the plastic lid to use as a pattern. This will allow you to hammer the nail dead-center in the lid and metal end at the same time.
2. Roll the 8.5 X 11 transparency film into a loose roll. Slide it into the can fom the open end. When you let go, it will expand to the size of the can’s interior, not needing tape to hold it inside.

It was a lot of fun to make these cookers and it did not cost a whole bunch. The kids get to experience solar power using something that they created themselves. I think that all teachers should try this project the kids bring in their own Pringles can and all you provide is a skewer and a transparency film, it is that easy! The kids will have fun and be able to eat what they make. It taught us a whole bunch on how solar energy can be used in different things and can be used in our normal daily lives.

These ovens are great for hikes, lunch, and to take home when they are done. Many students report taking them camping and sharing the ovens with family and friends. For those that “do not eat hot dogs,” remember there are turkey dogs and garden dogs out there. “No-Smoke Smores,” Bagel Bites and mini cheese melts can also be made in these ovens. On a hot day, hot dogs can be cooked in around 15-30 minutes. If your hot dog gets finished early, just aim the window away from the sun to keep it warm. For interesting flavor, some report a mild taste of the variety of Pringles that originally came in the can – just be careful not to clean it out before use.

Whatever your budget, Pringles can solar cookers are a great introduction to solar energy. Often students will start to think of other ways they can harness the sun’s free energy…

Spring and summer may seem to be a long way off, start collecting empty cans (with lids) now – you may be ready in time for solar hot dog season!

Story input provided by Nola

I am a teacher at the Clearlake Community School in Clearlake, California. I love living around the lake and having the lake as a center for our community as well as for neighboring communities like Lakeport and Lucerne and Kelseyville. The lake connects us and holds us together. I love having my friends and my family all living in and around this wonderful creation of nature. In the morning the sunlight hits the water and there is a mist that rises that you would have to see to understand. And every sunny day the lake is this wonderful blue color made vibrant by the yellow sun and the blue sky.

It is not a perfect circle in shape and the shoreline is varied and some places there are houses and bridges and other places there are just fish and birds. The lake is not a human invention, but rather a natural phenomenon. There are many lakes around the United States and around the world, but each lake is unique. Our lake is unique. And Clearlake is a beautiful place to live and work because almost wherever we go we can see the lake in the background.

My “people” have been driving around and living along the perimeter and boating on this wonderful lake since before I was born and they will do so long after I am gone. My friends live here. Few manmade structures offer us such a connection to each other as this clear lake. But I am gradually starting to get used to one manmade structure, the solar electricity panels in our “solar on a stick” pole mounted PV system. It is kind of an odd shape and some people might say it looks like a flower or a tree. It never moves and there is nothing turning and there is nothing burning inside. It is like a rock, but it is becoming familiar to me. I am getting comfortable with it. It is becoming part of our community.

This solar electricity system reminds me of the lake. The solar panels are arranged into an array, as a group of panels, and the array sits at the top of the pole at the school and collects sunlight just like the lake. And the array is blue just like the lake. Every morning the sun hits the solar panels and it wakes up and starts to make electricity. At night, the sun goes dark and the solar panels too go to sleep. Both the solar panels and the lake appear to be quiet, but there is life in both. The solar panels are generating electricity for our school and that electricity helps to power our lights, our computers, our telephones, our televisions, our microwave ovens, our televisions and the fans that move the heated air around in the winter and the cool air around in the winter.

Electricity may be invisible, but it is one of the most important parts of our community and in many ways it connects us to the outside world in the same way a road or river connects us. The lake has fish and birds and people and plants and trees all depending on it for life. All of us live here because of the lake and tourists come here to look at and fish in and boat on top of the lake. The more I think about it the more I find the solar electricity system at our school on top of that pole reminds me of our wonderful lake. One of the things that I have always wanted each of our students to understand is how we must protect the lake from pollution. Now what I also want them to understand is that the solar panels on the top of that pole help us protect the lake as well as the air we breathe and the land we walk on.

The grant that enabled us to get the solar array came from PG&E. The Foundation for Environmental Education helped us with the installation and NEED helped us with the teaching part of the project. We have a live data collection system that enables anyone to look on line and see how much electricity we are creating for our school at any time of the day.

The PG&E Solar School Program is a nice project for our in-classroom teaching because it gives us a tool for teaching math and science and art and social science. It helps our students understand that it is possible for a small group of kids in Clearlake, California to generate electricity. A multi-billion power plant is not the only way to generate electricity. All we need is a few solar panels on the top of the pole. Of course, to generate all of the electricity we use in Clearlake we will need a lot more panels, but how many and where they might go and how much they will cost is all part of an educational exercise. And for the next generation that we are teaching, it will not be “either fossil or solar” or “nuclear or wind” but rather how to use each fuel source to take advantage of its strengths and to minimize its disadvantages. Those won’t be easy decisions and this project will help our students understand the question a lot more than students who have never seen a solar electricity system work.

So just like we use the lake as a teaching tool to help them understand how powerful this large body of water is and why we must protect it while we use it, the PV panels help us teach them how important it is for us to protect our environment while we live in it and while we use it. I also like it because every day when I go to school I love driving by the lake as it wakes up.  Every day, when I get to school, I love seeing that blue solar array on the top of that pole starting its day as well. And more and more of my friends and family are starting to notice it to. Hopefully, in the near future, we will all be so used to seeing solar panels on every building in Clearlake that people will stop paying any attention to our solar on a stick. But I will notice it. I will always be aware of both the lake and now the solar panels year in and year out doing their jobs like I am doing mine.

2008 is almost upon us. As we close out the year, we’d like to share reflections and some ideas for surging the sun in the year ahead. Here is a perspective from this year’s American Solar Energy Society conference, held in Cleveland, OH. It’s being held in San Diego this year – May 3-8. In fact the two largest solar conferences in the nation (ASES and SEPA/SEIA) are both being held in San Diego this year…help make 2008 a surging year for the sun! Put these events on your calendar.

Story submitted by Alex Kizer

Driving through downtown Cleveland, Ohio for the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) convention, last July, I couldn’t help but notice the decomposing warehouses, standing vacantly among the boroughs of the gentrified districts of the “Mistake on the Lake.” I was passing by the stage where many steel workers presented their empty plea to future-looking authorities; the ensuing death that inevitably destroyed the antiquated industry of the past shined today in the presence of my brand-new hotel.

My grandfather, born and raised in Cleveland, was one such loser in this battle with the “Technology Age.” Invisible hands have actually brought impending unemployment to both my grandfathers, but that’s the beauty of capitalism, right? In all truthfulness, that’s correct. Regardless of our forefathers’ exclamations, such as, “You can’t find a shoe made within the continental United States, anywhere!” this is the way things work in our globalized world. I have to ignore it when my grandfather calls and asks, “Where can I get an American-made television? Our Sony is busted and Walmart only has Samsung in stock.” I never have the heart to tell him there’s no escaping international trade.

Having the solar energy convention in Cleveland is exactly what the former proprietors of Cleveland had in mind when they put an axe to their industrial economy. “Someday,” they might have said over cocktails at a local aristocratic dinner, “the sons and daughters of the bone-broke factory men and women will thank us. They will be able to discuss alternative resources as plausible supplements to an economy that needs to go in that direction, anyway. Also, they will be able to buy Japanese TVs at discount prices.” Or they’d say something similar to that tune.

It’s sad to say but they were right. Cleveland—much like I hope for the rest of America—was able to effectively cut their losses when it came to the costly economic dead weight of the steel industry; an industry that was physically dangerous for workers and extremely costly to run when compared to the low-cost of steel imports and the high-cost of American labor. But for solar energy, the evolution I am referring to requires a little more complexity, as the dangerous and costly industries that I’m suggesting (oil and coal) have permeated American and global life even further than the omnipotent steel industry. The oil and coal industries are, without a doubt, economic juggernauts with seemingly infinite resources around the world. Everything runs on, eats up, uses, and digests some form of these two resources. For America, however, a similar opinion was held by U.S. migrants less than a century ago regarding the aforementioned metal (steel). From Cleveland to San Francisco, America embodied ample land, so much land it was thought it would take centuries to lay the necessary tracks. America followed the economic path of least resistance and benefited from it resoundingly.

If Cleveland was opening its once bitter doors to an alternative energy convention, then maybe there’s hope of incorporating solar energy into our national economy on a real level. Because this year’s ASES convention wasn’t in Florida or California, but, instead, in Me-o, Oh my-o, Oh-Cleveland Ohio, the more I thought about it the more I felt satisfied with our country’s current state of events. When can someone actually say they’re participating in an event that proves that the Midwest might someday evolve economically? Well, I can.

The ASES convention exhibits the Midwest’s openness to the technologies “of the future.” Even though I embody the enemy of my grandfathers—Idealists, who at one time were, as my grandfather put it, “trying to move American jobs to Outer Space”—I am beaming to see if the economic evolution of Cleveland is, in fact, a microcosm for the potential evolution of our economy on the national scale. If a large Midwest city can open its doors to a new type of resource; if a people surrounded by their fallen industry can accept their evolving economy as a must; and if non-progressive citizens recognize their current oil and coal consuming trajectory as problematic to America’s power (both home and abroad), then I am optimistic that our economy can evolve and incorporate alternative energy solutions in the same way that Cleveland left steel for something more safe and more effective. Parking my car in the lot, I walked up the underground tarmac to find the Cleveland Convention center and then my businesses’ (Solar Resource Corp.) booth. I was excited to see if others had come to the same conclusion as I had.

Before I stepped into the convention center building, I stopped and looked at a gigantic wind turbine that sits before the convention center on the Lake’s side. Watching the long white blades swipe across the tall blue sky, I couldn’t help but wonder why Cleveland was so frequently referred to as the “Mistake on the Lake.”

This is our second part of a two part series on our latest favorite solar device! Our last story was from an educational perspective, and this time we’re taking it to the streets…with a glimpse into the electric consumption, and new carbon free mobility choices of a solar salesperson in Berkeley, CA.

Story submitted by James Hatfield, SolarCity road warrior

I am a solar salesperson who spends a lot of my time out on the road. And I love cross-country running. That means I spend a lot of time on my phone, taking sun readings on rooftops, and almost every day I have my mp3 player plugged into my ears while I’m out running. I’m probably not the only person living like this, but suffice it to say I spend quite a bit of time away from home – and using electricity in my assortment of little productivity devices.

A typical day for me: out on the road making several sales visits, talking about solar energy with homeowners, business owners, schools, city officials (read: anyone who will listen), and using my Solmetric SunEye tool to measure solar access for the roof area, then, if time permits, sneak in a quick energizing run through the woods in a nearby state park while listening to my favorite tunes, then get on the phone and talk, talk, talk. All of this takes a lot of energy, but not only my own energy. I’m talking about electricity — juice, lightnin’ in a bottle, man’s greatest invention, whatever you want to call it — the stuff needed to power my productivity tools: the SunEye, mp3, and the cell phone. And I need it all day, every day. Sure, my little devices don’t individually or even collectively require much electricity, but (isn’t there always a “but”) I have to assume that there are thousands, nay, millions, of “road warriors” like myself who are plugging their own productivity tools into the wall every day and night. And I really don’t like plugging into the wall – this ultimately means plugging into dirty power.

Enter man’s latest greatest invention, the Solio! The Solio is a hybrid solar charger, used by people all over the world to provide low-demand electricity for all kinds of devices. Now, I’ve seen all sorts of photovoltaic charging devices that provide trickle supply – heck, I have a friend who’s got a small photovoltaic module on his car dashboard that keeps his car battery in tip-top shape. But, the greatest thing about the Solio is that it’s got an internal lithium-ion battery, which means that I can charge it during the day and plug my devices into it at any time. And because it’s a newer, long-lasting battery technology, the battery won’t “die” or lose it’s stored capacity for quite a long time – up to a full year.

Let’s do a little math to see what power these little devices require:

• My SunEye charger requires 50 Watts, and I charged it on average 2 hours a week (50 x 2 = 100 Watt hours)
• My BlackBerry charger uses 24 Watts, and I charged it 8 hours a week (24 x 8 = 192 Wh)
• My mp3 player needs 2 Watts to charge, and I charge it 4 hours a week (2 x 4 = 8 Wh)

So, in a week I was using (100 + 192 + 8 =) 300 Wh per week. Taken over a full year, this calculates out to (300 Wh x 52 weeks = 15,600 Wh, or) 15.6 kWh.

In California, 1 kiloWatt hour produces 0.49 lbs of CO2. In CA, baseline (the cheapest) electricity in PG&E territory costs 11.43 cents/kWh. Here’s an example Power Label from my August 2007 PG&E Bill:

Most importantly, this means by using the Solio over the course of a year (which I have every intention of doing), I’ll remove 7.644 lbs of CO2 from the air. Additionally, I’ll save myself (15.6 x $0.1143) $1.78 in a year – I’ll make sure to by myself a cup o’ coffee in October 2008 and thank my Solio! This last figure may not be much to any one individual (at least in our society), but multiplied by let’s say 300 million cell phones & mp3 players in the US, that’s $534 million!! And 2,293,200,000 lbs (yes, that’s Billions!) of CO2 (a conservative estimate, given that CA’s energy is among the cleanest in the US). Now, that is the type of wholesale change that truly will make an impact.

Another very useful aspect of the tool is its rubber suction cone, which allows me to stick it in any window in my car while I’m driving (or parked). If I’m driving northwest at 3pm, I stick it in the passenger window behind me. If I’m driving east at 10am, it’s in the front passenger window. If I park in a covered parking garage for a visit with a customer, I plug in my mp3 player and put everything in the glove box to charge the mp3 player. There’s never a dull moment!

Other benefits: the Solio comes with a complete set of plug adaptors for all types of phones and devices, meaning you can likely charge what you need right out of the box.

The result of having this handy dandy tool? I haven’t plugged any of my productivity tools into the wall in 5 weeks! I’ve not had one moment where I’m caught with a dead device, and even when we have a couple dark, rainy days I’ve got enough stored power to keep me going. The change from plugging into the Solio vs. wall outlets was easy – so much so that I am afraid to say I don’t even know where my wall charger is for my BlackBerry. But, I’m not worried at all – the Solio has worked perfectly, and will keep on working forever…I hope! The battery should last 10+ years, much longer than any of these devices will likely last, so the Solio will make “friends” with quite a lot of trinkets in the coming years and won’t account for a single particle of CO2 in the air while doing it.