Portable Solar Energy Systems

Portable solar energy systems are a market that grows larger every day. From the practical to the sublime, if it needs to be powered, there is probably a PV system ready to do it.

As to the PV system itself, it's claimed that there are systems big enough to power a whole house. There are PV systems for camping, boating, survivalists, parties, computers, small electric appliances, and nearly everything else.

The PV panels come in quite a variety as well. There are large arrays that can be mounted on trailers for agricultural applications such as water pumping, electrical fencing, or portable lighting. There are also smaller panels of various sizes. There is even quite a variety of roll-up PV panels that are flexible and of different size and wattages. If you have a hard time imagining what these look like, you're not alone. If you have seen the movie “Big”, and remember the roll-up keyboard that was being danced on, you have a good idea what the PV panels look like; only, don't dance on them.

There are portable energy systems that will charge and re-charge just about any thing you could imagine. On a quick trip around the internet, there were chargers who promised to charge iPods, PDAs, laptops, GPS units, satellite phones, MP3 and CD players, and portable games.

There are even solar powered backpacks, bags, and hats to keep you cool.

There are two different showers, one that promised a pressurized warm shower, and one that promised a spray shower. They both came in a black bucket with the instruction to leave it in the sun for a few hours; but that still counts as a portable solar energy system, no matter how passive. There was also the promise of a solar powered water purification system, but no illustration of one.

There are portable PV lights, easy to install, that charge by day and twinkle by night, white, red, blue, and green, suitable for Christmas or a right old rave-up.

But of all the items found in this little tour of the internet, the one that seemed the most important, and therefore amazing, was the solar powered autoclave. An autoclave is the machine that you use to sterilize things of a medical nature, tools for a small office procedure or a large surgery. It can be amusing at times to see all the more outlandish or silly things that technology offers us, but the thought of medicine being practiced so far away or in such a theater or circumstance might impress us and give us pause to think.

And maybe it reminds us again what noble things technology can do for us.