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.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 4:42 pm and is filed under California, General Info, Perspectives . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.