Solar Toys

Solar power: it’s not just for energy. It has countless practical – and impractical – uses.

Consider the Solar Light Cap. Better than a flashlight because you wear it on your head, the Solar Light Cap charges during the day, and can be turned on at night for as many as five hours. See six feet in front of you, and stop fumbling around in the dark.

Next time you go  camping, wouldn’t it be nice to use your tent to charge your GPS system? Solar powered tents come with LED lights installed inside, with solar panels that can be attached to the roof.

The Glastonbury Solar Tent, made by Orange, features coated solar threads woven right into the fabric. It’s able to charge batteries, there’s a floor heater, wireless Internet access, and “Glo-cation” technology – if you get lost, just text your tent, and it will light up for you.

Or, let’s say you’re the type that would rather camp in your backyard.  How about a solar-powered spinning sunflower to enhance your garden? It moves much like the wind-catching variety, only this one spins when the sunlight warms its solar panel.

Let’s not forget the kids.  Animal Planet offers three solar-powered animal toys. When fully charged the zebra, elephant and giraffe delight kids with realistic movements.  They raise their feet, turn their heads and twitch their tails.

You can even use solar gadgets to charge your other gadgets.  PowerGorilla makes a portable charger that can be plugged in and carried with you and your laptop wherever you go.  It’s also good for iPods, portable DVD players, cameras, you name it.

If you think about it, it’s kind of poetic – using solar to charge your battery-devouring toys.

Wanted: super batteries – mere mortals need not apply

Solar and wind power are fantastic energy alternatives to non-renewable fossil fuels. But as everyone knows, they only work when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. So far, wind and solar count for only 3 percent of the energy needs in the United States. But with plans to increase wind power supplies to 25 percent by 2025, a reliable and stable back-up is essential.

Enter Plan B. Plan Battery, that is.

A small wind farm in Luverne, Minnesota is leading the charge with the nation’s first wind-to-battery setup. It uses the wind to charge batteries that in turn release the wind power onto the grid.

These aren’t your typical double-A batteries. They are super-batteries the size a double-decker bus, complete with mask, cape and superpowers. Though they can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, they certainly can power them.

A Super Battery can soak up 7.2 megawatt hours of power with help from his trusty sidekicks: Wind Turbines. The superhero team belongs to MinWind, a Minnesota wind-power developer.

Overseeing the entire super battery project is Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based utility, which bought the batteries from NGK Insulators, a Japanese battery supplier. The reason? A year ago, their wind capacity was at 2,700 megawatts compared with about 3,000 megawatts today, an amount it hopes to double by 2020.

Research is being done to see how much power the sodium-sulfur battery system can absorb, how quickly, at what cost – and then deliver it to the grid.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No – it’s Super-battery!

Image: XCel Energy