I could adapt computer work to solar conditions. There’s a remarkable difference in power use for the laptop between writing (roughly 15W) and surfing the web (roughly 25W). In other words, I can work almost twice as long when I’m writing, which I could do whenever available energy is low.
I’ve been impressed by Opera’s battery saver mode. It substantially increases my battery life on my debian laptop. (6 hours vs 3-4 w/ Firefox and Chrome) I’ve also heard good things about Safari’s power usage on macs.
Additionally, I saw a review for the ARM version of the Lenovo Yoga. It sports an incredible 25 hour battery life. Makes you wonder what an ARM laptop future would look like for off the grid users.
That’s really nice and all but I live in an apartment with windows to the north and to the east (10° to the south). Just some napkin math tells me I could get 77% usage for 3-4h a day. Yay. Don’t even have the energy (no pun intended) to calculate wattage for that. (46 sunny days on average per year) and I don’t want to plaster my whole balcony with solar panels either. Oh, and that is one the cities in Germany with the most sunshine.
Fair enough, but the lights are going to be on at the library whether you’re there or not. So it’s at least a small gain in efficiency by not using your lights.
I want to do something similar. Run much of my digital entertainment off of solar. Just to step into some green technology as well as maybe create limits around tech time.
Really curious what my usage is like compared to how much electricity I could slurp up from the sun.
I’ve been impressed by Opera’s battery saver mode. It substantially increases my battery life on my debian laptop. (6 hours vs 3-4 w/ Firefox and Chrome) I’ve also heard good things about Safari’s power usage on macs.
Additionally, I saw a review for the ARM version of the Lenovo Yoga. It sports an incredible 25 hour battery life. Makes you wonder what an ARM laptop future would look like for off the grid users.
This is an excellent article: clear, thorough, and directly applicable. Thanks for sharing it.
That’s really nice and all but I live in an apartment with windows to the north and to the east (10° to the south). Just some napkin math tells me I could get 77% usage for 3-4h a day. Yay. Don’t even have the energy (no pun intended) to calculate wattage for that. (46 sunny days on average per year) and I don’t want to plaster my whole balcony with solar panels either. Oh, and that is one the cities in Germany with the most sunshine.
I liked that the author suggested “going to the library” as a way to get off the grid.
Basically sidestepping the issue and straight up using someone else’s electricity 😂
Fair enough, but the lights are going to be on at the library whether you’re there or not. So it’s at least a small gain in efficiency by not using your lights.
I want to do something similar. Run much of my digital entertainment off of solar. Just to step into some green technology as well as maybe create limits around tech time.
Really curious what my usage is like compared to how much electricity I could slurp up from the sun.