The Lightbulb Goes On!

[elfs]

Across the street from the incubator is the Pemco insurance building, and one of the big deals is this sign on the side that proclaims in big letters, "The solar panels on the roof of this building are generating 3.3KW of power!" And I used to wonder, exactly how much power is that? What is that in meaningful terms?

Today, it's a grey day and the sign is showing a pathetic "0.11KW of power." And then it hit me: holy chao, that's 110 watts. That's two lightbulbs. The proud LED sign braying out how much energy they're generating probably takes more power to run than the solar cells generate.

Comments

Re: Oh, no

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

A sign made of those superbright LEDs would need water cooling and radiators as large as Pemco's solar array! Plus it would blind everyone who looked at it.

Also, mine (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001H4MWA4) are brighter (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0020XF0JQ). :-)

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