How A Portable Solar Charger Saved My Life

September 24th, 2014 by Tina Casey

In case you’re wondering why we’ve been reviewing some portable solar chargers, lately, it’s not just for fun. Okay so it’s fun, but we’re also interested in how the niche market for mobile energy is growing. Since we don’t have prime sun at hand, we’re also interested in how useful portable solar chargers can be when your solar access is less than ideal.

Also, one of our favorite themes was front and center at yesterday’s UN Climate Summit in New York, that being the race between clean energy and fossil fuels for Africa and other emerging energy markets. “Helping more nations skip past the dirty phase of development,” is the way President Obama put it. A similar scenario is being played out in the niche market for mobile energy.

Portable solar charger (photo by Tina Casey).

The Revive Portable Solar Charger

The folks over at Accessory Genie sent us over a sample of the ReVIVE Solar ReStore series RA 4 portable solar charger to test and it arrived right before the People’s Climate March, so we brought it along to check out almost cold turkey (the manufacturer is Accessory Power btw).

Unlike the last couple of portable solar chargers we’ve tested, the RA 4 has no battery. It’s intended for on-the-go use and according to the package, it will start charging your USB device (phone or tablet) in about 30 seconds after you put it in the sun. Okay, so you can’t use it at night but we discovered something to work around that, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Before heading out for the march, we checked out the claimed charging time in less than ideal conditions, indoors on a bay window with no direct sunlight on a cloudy morning. We didn’t get the green light within 30 seconds (surprise!) but it still took under a minute. That made us feel pretty confident about stuffing it in the backpack along with the laptop and everything else for a day on our feet.

As for solar conditions at the Climate March, that was no walk in the sun either. We ended up spending about three hours talking to marchers mustering at Central Park West between West 67th Street and 71st street, mostly on the park side of the street where the trees were plentiful and the sun was not so much.

Our fully charged iPhone went down to 50% after just 45 minutes of taking photos and videos, so given the shade our first recourse was to hook it up to a small portable solar charger with a built-in battery. That got the iPhone up to 75% in short order, but since we hadn’t bothered to fully charge the solar battery beforehand (we brought it along as a second thought), that was it.

So, it was time to bring out the big gun. Like our small charger, the RA 4 comes with a handle for hanging up. You could clip it onto your backpack if you’re tall enough, but I used a makeshift sling to hang it off my shoulder (okay so I’m short).

Here’s where it gets interesting. I still had my phone hooked into the little device, which provided an opportunity to see if the RA 4 could charge my phone and at least maintain the small charge left in the solar battery, so instead of hooking my phone into the RA 4 I hooked the RA 4 into the little charger.

Yep, it worked. Hanging from my shoulder and getting a bit of direct sun (though not at an ideal angle), but mostly shaded by trees, buildings, and people, the RA 4 still delivered enough charge to rev up the battery in the small charger. My iPhone quickly got back up to 100% and stayed there for the next couple of hours while I took as many photos and videos as I wanted.

Given the conditions, it wasn’t surprising that the RA 4 didn’t have enough juice to restore the charge in the battery, but it did save my life at the Climate March. Okay so it saved my phone, but same deal.

I did check it out later in still less than ideal but fairly good solar conditions, outdoors in my driveway. I forget how long it took (probably less than a couple of hours), but under better conditions and without the added burden of the iPhone, the RA 4 did get the battery solar charger back to two bars from one.

One Portable Solar Charger, Good. Two, Better.

As we mentioned in our review, there are many different variations on the solar theme, and each portable solar charger has its own capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages.

We’ve checked out a couple of small portable solar chargers and they are really handy for a one-shot recharge (could have kicked ourselves for not bringing one to the UN Climate Summit!), but their small field makes them inconvenient for recharging on the go, which is where the much larger RA 4 comes in.

As for the mobile charger market, what you’re basically talking about is microscale distributed energy generation, which is going to be a huge target for change as the solar industry competes with fossil fuels for emerging markets in Africa and elsewhere.

Next up: a review of a portable fuel cell charger.

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Tags: Accessory Genie, Accessory Power, portable solar charger

About the Author

Tina Casey Tina Casey specializes in military and corporate sustainability, advanced technology, emerging materials, biofuels, and water and wastewater issues. Tina’s articles are reposted frequently on Reuters, Scientific American, and many other sites. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter @TinaMCasey and Google+.

Bob_Wallace

Why not a rechargeable battery pack?

I have more rechargeable AA, AAA and C cells than I need. That way I can grab as many charged cells as I need for any purpose (portable radio takes 6 Cs, flashlight takes 3 AAs, …) and stick my discharged cells in the charger.

Heading out to a big event, put in a fresh set of batteries and you’re good to go.

Any money spent on solar panels should result in panels being exposed to the Sun as many hours as possible. These panels, for most people, will spend 99% of the time in the dark.
Hans

“but it did save my life at the Climate March. Okay so it saved my phone, but same deal.”

Insert old man grumbling about the youth of today having false priorities and muddling up language with their ironic, tongue in cheek, in-crowd writing style.

From the title I expected some heroic story of a crashed plane far away from civilisation, and that the survivors could only be rescued because one passenger had a solar charger in his suitcase. I was therefore quit disappointed with the actual, rather boring story.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  To be fair, this was a reporter who needed to keep their equipment running while they covered an event.
  
  (The headline is a bit over the top. But we don’t need to be Puritan-serious all the time.)
  - Hans
    
    “we don’t need to be Puritan-serious all the time.”
    
    I thought the text-part “old man grumbling” made it clear that my comment not meant very seriously. Maybe I should have put in some smileys.
    
    However, I still would have liked a juicy heroic story.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      Yeah. A tale of how she almost plummeted to her death from the top of a skyscraper when knocked off balance by a deranged Koch brother, but saved by her solar panel getting caught on a sharp piece of metal, leaving her dangling while a chopper came to pluck her from a certain death.
      
      Yeah. That’s the ticket….
      
      “deranged Koch brother” – isn’t that redundant?
Marion Meads

And they shouldn’t price it according to how they think it would save lives. Remember that I can buy a $5 small 1.1 Watt solar panel gadget from eBay that can do the same job. So it must compete with the $5/Watt pricing of small items.
- GCO
  
  If you’re into making your own portable charger, for uses like the one above, you’d get much more bang for your buck, and pollute a lot less too, by just grabbing a couple AA batteries from the local convenience store.
  Bonus points for choosing low-self-discharge rechargeables…
  - Marion Meads
    
    You pollute more with AA batteries than solar panels especially when you dispose of the AA batteries and there are no recycling or hazard waste disposal in your locality.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      “Bonus points for choosing low self-discharge rechargeables.”
      
      And shame on your county for not offering recycling for batteries.
    - GCO
      
      The picture will be very different after you take into account all the energy it took to make this tiny module from eBay and bring it to you, in its individual little bubble wrap, by air, from Hong Kong or China.
      
      Even the one in this article would struggle to recoup the energy used to transport it a mere half mile. -> http://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/24/how-a-portable-solar-charger-saved-life/#comment-1604921260
      
      So again, for occasional use like the one described in this article, it would be much greener to use (hopefully rechargeable) batteries available locally.
- Offgridman
  
  So for an equal output you will need 13 of your 1.1 watt panels (65$ according to your numbers), and then transformer/inversion equipment for the USB dual voltage output. Something to interconnect all those panels, wires, and transformers and make them into the same easy to carry around package. So now what is the materials cost up to, and you haven’t even accounted for assembly time.
  The reason that devices like this sell is because all the hassle and complication of building your own has been taken care of. Yes it is at somewhat of a premium price, but to just be able to buy it and plug your phone in must be worth something.
  - Marion Meads
    
    phones are charged DC to DC, no need for a Goldberg type inverter contraption!
    
    So the 13 Watt solar PV recharger, it should be sold for around $65. I think they will retail this one at $299.
    - Offgridman
      
      Yes phones do charge on DC voltage, most commonly those using the micro or mini USB ports at five volts with an amperage of 1.0 or 2.1, as this device is set up to output. However with its panels having a 14 volt output (as another poster was kind enough to find out for us) , and the amperage being variable according to the amount of light hitting them their is some compensatory control circuitry between the panels and the outputs.
      If you want to buy your cheap panels off from eBay and just hook them directly up to your valuable smartphone let me please caution you not to as your battery will be burned out within a week especially if you are charging it at 14 volts and the variable amperage that come from solar panels. This is why people have to deal with the ‘soft costs’ of inverters and or charge controllers in any type of solar system, whether grid tied or not.
      Now before you come back with some other argument as to the value of this device or others like it and how you could make the same thing with cheap parts off from eBay. Will you please take at least a basic class in electrical circuitry design and implementation, I can understand that you may not have the time or money to get the same engineering degrees that I did, but we can not have a rational discussion on this subject until you can at least understand the basics of what we are talking about..
      Thank you, and may you have a good evening Ms Meads
Offgridman

Ms Casey,
While I have enjoyed your reviews and hearing your experiences with these various portable chargers, the inclusion of some of the specific numbers on each model would have been helpful.
The time for charging your specific devices does give us an approximation of the capabilities of each. But for the reader if you included the wattage, or possible amperage output of each as an addendum it would save having to look up each manufacturer for this information,.
Thanks
- GCO
  
  Another interesting data point would be, how much energy could those gadgets actually provide over their usually very limited lifetime (maybe a few years, depending on the quality of the battery and how well it’s protected from the heat of the solar cells; so a few kW⋅h at the most), and how much emissions they might avoid, versus how much energy went into, and pollution caused by, their manufacturing and eventual disposal.
  
  What those portable chargers really produce isn’t electricity, it’s e-waste.
  - Joseph Dubeau
    
    They have these on Amazon:
    TECH SPECS: Solar power input: 14 watts / USB power output: DC 5V 1A and 2.1A / Adjustable strap length: 24 inches to 48 inches / Weight: 1.90 pounds
    Unfold to 2.8ft to reveal 4 Ultra-slim Solar Panels and Protective Device Pocket; Folds down to 10.63″ x 8.25″ x 2.63″ for superior portability
    - GCO
      
      And? Even assuming that the rating is honest (a big if) and that one would use it like the story above but every single week-end, it’d still produce less than 1 kW⋅h/year.
      
      This gizmo won’t even recoup the energy used just for its delivery.
      
      Now, Tina & al, please tell me about how much more resources went into manufacturing this stuff, and its eventual impact as unrecyclable waste when its novelty appeal will have faded.
      
      Until then, let’s at least please stop pretending that buying wasteful gadgets might be good for the planet. It’s anything but.
      - Offgridman
        
        Your calling this a wasteful gadget is only seeing it from your own privileged viewpoint on the world.
        What about the 1/3 of the world’s households that don’t have reliable access to grid supplied electricity. Would their using it every day to keep lights and cellphones (communication and information access) charged up give it enough of a energy return to satisfy your requirements? Or even for people that live in the westernized world but are conscientious about their carbon footprint, so use this every day to charge their devices rather than grid power, does that make the energy numbers balance well enough?
        To me it seems that anything that helps us to use renewable energy, as opposed to that coming from coal, natural gas, or any other fossil fuel is a positive. So even if this wasn’t used every day, and then passed on through gifting, yard sale, or whatever will mean just another contribution towards that goal.
      - GCO
        
        No, I call low-power solar toys like this wasteful, because making and transporting them use far more resources
        than they will ever compensate for.
        
        This one isn’t meant for daily use in some 3rd-world country, it’s too expensive and nowhere near rugged enough.
        It makes even less sense where grid power is available.
        
        Say the only energy spent for getting this thing to the user is a delivery truck making a 1-mile detour + idling for one minute: 25cl of fuel (1/15 gallon), roughly 10 MJ.
        Charging a typical ~1.5 Ah smartphone battery from 25% to 100% needs about 6 W⋅h or 22 kJ.
        
        There, it’d already take 500 such uses to just recoup the delivery, and that’s assuming a grid as dirty as a diesel truck. Call me pessimistic, but I highly doubt that users will be dedicated enough, and the device prove sturdy enough, to even reach that point.
        
        And we haven’t even started to consider the impact of manufacturing and elimination…
    - Offgridman
      
      Thank you
      - Joseph Dubeau
        
        sure
  - Offgridman
    
    “Limited lifetime”
    I do agree that with the ones that incorporate batteries that is an issue. But hopefully with the Tesla gigafactory and other manufacturers doing the same Li-ion batteries will become a regular part of our recycling stream just like aluminum or iron/steel based products.
    But that doesn’t really apply to this specific product as it is panels only with no attached battery. If they are a good quality, high output panel, as advertised, is there any reason to think that they won’t have a reasonably long life, just like the panels mounted on homes?
    - GCO
      
      Not having integrated batteries (unlike the previous one advertised here) will result in some wasted capacity but is a big plus for longevity indeed.
      
      Rooftop PV modules are tempered glass usually framed with aluminum. They are meant to withstand 30+ years outdoor, and typically guaranteed for 25.
      This product looks like plastic/resin + synthetic fabric, probably nylon, which has poor UV resistance.
JamesWimberley

“It did save my life at the Climate March. Okay so it saved my phone, but same deal.” Isn’t the definition of a fuddy-duddy someone who rescues their child from a fire ahead of their smartphone?