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Landscape Lighting Articles & Resources
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Solar Landscape Lighting: Let the Sun Light Up
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You have a beautiful yard and you want to light it to increase its security or highlight its features. You don’t need it lit like a stadium and you’d like to do it affordably. Low voltage fixtures are an option, but you don’t want to deal with the hassle of their installation plus, even 
though they use less energy, they still use electricity from your house. This is the perfect situation in which to consider solar landscape lighting.
It used to be that solar lighting had a poor reputation because they produced weak light and their batteries didn’t hold a charge long enough, reducing the amount of time they could be used. Today’s solar lights are brighter, use less energy, and can run for longer periods of time. They use a solar panel to capture sunlight throughout the day and charge a battery that powers light-emitting diodes (LEDs) during the night. The LEDs provide brighter light than the old incandescent bulbs, especially if the fixture contains a large number of them (the more LEDs, the brighter the light) and can run for up to 10 hours or more.
While solar lights can be more expensive initially, they end up saving you money by running on free energy, plus they’re easy to install. Most fixtures contain their own solar panel and battery which means there’s no need to run wires throughout your yard, you can install them anywhere they are needed (you’re not restricted to areas near where your outlets are located), and you can easily move them as you see fit. Once they’re installed, you can forget about them because they have a switch to turn them on and off automatically.
Solar lights come in many styles and are used in a variety of situations. For lighting pathways, there are low fixture and tier lights that are close to ground (reducing glare) and stepping stones with the lights built in. For decks and larger garden areas, there are taller fixtures, hanging lights, and flood lights. All of which can be hooked up to a motion sensor, prolonging their life through the night by turning on only when someone is around. There are also decorative lights that range from ornamental, such as frogs or statues, to functional spot lights imbedded in rocks and lighthouses that greet visitors to your garden. A solar landscape lighting contractor can help you decide the best style for the ambience that you want to create.
To get the most out of your solar lighting, it’s helpful to keep a couple of things in mind. They need to be placed in an area that gets sufficient sunlight during the day to power them through the night. Note the patterns of shade that your house and plants cast throughout the day, and place the fixtures in the areas with the most light. The extended daylight hours in the summer can make this less important, but it can be a bigger issue in the winter. There are a couple of possibilities to help with this. You can place a solar panel, separate from the light fixture, where it will get the most sunlight then run wires to the lights you want the panel to power. While this helps collect more energy for the lights, you have the additional issue of running wires. You could also move your fixtures around your yard throughout the year to optimize the amount of light they receive.
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