Can Solar-Powered Lights Be Charged Indoors?

Solar-powered lights make great outdoor accents and increase the safety of your walkways, but on cloudy days or during the winter months, it's sometimes difficult for them to achieve a full charge. Thankfully, in a pinch, you can usually charge your solar-powered lights indoors.

How to Charge Solar Powered Lights Without the Sun

Use Incandescent Lights

If using the sun isn't an option, you can bring your solar-powered lights inside and charge them with incandescent bulbs. The artificial light produced by incandescent bulbs has a similar wavelength and spectrum to natural sunlight, making them a reasonable substitute for sunlight. Of course, this isn't an energy-efficient route unless your house is fully solar-powered; if the bulb is plugged into a standard power grid, that power probably didn't come from an eco-friendly source.

Use LED Lights

Like incandescent light sources, LED lights can also be used to charge solar-powered lights. They're also more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs, converting more energy into light; incandescent bulbs convert a large amount of energy into heat instead, which is wasted energy.

Plug Them In

Many solar-powered lights also offer alternative methods of charging, most commonly through USB ports. Again, unless your home runs exclusively on solar power, this won't be the most eco-friendly option, but it will work relatively quickly.