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Dell, Lenovo Adding Solar Option for PCs
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Sep 16, 2007 11:23 AM
from the well-not-exactly dept.
from the well-not-exactly dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Lenovo just announced a solar power option for PCs, and Dell is about to do the same, according to Advanced Energy Group. But the solar hardware weights 86 pounds and costs $1,300! Lenovo officials admit they had to do this to reach the 75% mark to gain EPEAT Gold status; Dell couldn't be reached for comment. Hopefully the technology will get smaller and more affordable."
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Submission: Dell, Lenovo Adding Solar Option for PCs by Anonymous Coward
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All right! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All right! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:All right! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:All right! (Score:4, Funny)
That sounds like quite a trick.
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I can't wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe Dell could get a rep for being "pro-fitness", too, with that 86 lb. power supply.
Wait for what? (Score:5, Informative)
They're available in all sorts, from cheap ones that can only slowly charge the battery (though they seem to be able to provide part of the required power while the laptop is on, extending the battery's life), to more expensive ones that produce enough power to keep the laptop on, assuming favorable light levels of course.
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Re:Wait for what? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Wait for what? (Score:5, Funny)
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Shade. (Score:5, Funny)
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Unfortunately most laptop screens dont view at all (Score:3, Informative)
in sunlight.
Ah but if you can afford one of these solar power packs, you can also afford a hood [steves-digicams.com] or shader for a laptop as well.
FalconRe: (Score:2)
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With this setup I can run on the smallest battery Lenovo offers for the unit, a 4-cell Li-Ion good for about 1.5 hours, for a little over 10 hours. If I simply close the lid, thereby turning off the screen, the usage goes down to about 6W so the laptop can charge while running. Shutting it down for
Batteries Included (Score:5, Interesting)
A real winner would be mobile phones whose cases all recharge off solar (or just ambient light, even indoors). That kind of mass market could drive down the price:performance curve, open up the tech to all our powered devices. And make the "solar look" popular that even people who buy on nothing but fashion (most people) would start saving power with all these accessories.
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I've been considering a solar charger for all my C/AA/AAA battery powered home devices (remotes, cordless phones, clocks, etc.). Maybe a centralized solution like that might be better. Then you can just put a small panel up on the roof or a south facing wall or something.
The problem there with cell phones (and watches for that matter) is the utter lack of batte
Re:Batteries Included (Score:4, Informative)
When it comes to watch batteries (properly called button cells): Why do we need different types of 'normal' batteries? (i.e. AA, AAA, D, etc) I seem to remember from school that larger batteries tend to have better output in terms of Amp-Hours, but large batteries are not always practical. Would you carry around an MP3 player that used a D battery instead of an AAA or AA? Very small devices, like hearing aids and watches, need very small and/or very thin batteries, but things like calculators can have larger batteries for longer life span. As far as visually undistinguishable batteries, take a close look at the package, they're often the same battery from a manufacturer with a different numbering scheme or the same battery with different innards (like Ni-cad vs Li-ion). Just look at the wikipedia entry for the extremely common LR44 [wikipedia.org] battery, there are dozens of manufacturer or retailer part numbers. The IEC [wikipedia.org] defines standards for naming, but can't force anyone to use their system of nomenclature. I would double check, but in my experience, two identical-looking button cells are often the same battery but for a manufacturer's stamp.
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Yep. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yep. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Mod Parent Up! (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt whether the energy saved by running a PC off this thing will even offset the energy used in it's manufacture, but hey it sounds good and people go "aren't dell good environmentalists".
Everybody goes out and replaces their (perfectly functioning) fords with a "green" Prius. Totally ignoring the fact that manufacturing the Prius itself requires large amounts of energy, therefore emitting a lot of carbon. It would be better for the planet to keep to old car for a few years, or even better to use public transport.
The consumerist approach to environmentalism is like trying to fight WWII by asking individual members of the population to buy guns and go out and shoot a few Germans in their spare time. If governments took this problem remotely as seriously as they claim to there would be proper regulation, as indeed there must be. Consumerism will not solve this problem, we need people who can actually add up working out how existing resources can best be directed to save the planet; not the bloody marketing department at dell.
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What is that i hear? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Consumer-grade panels are less than 20% efficient, an average PC with an average monitor and some gadgets attached use about 150W, at ~12h/day, this is about 1.5kWh/day. There is usable sunlight less than 8h/day so the solar array needs to provide at least 600W during that period under worst-case lighting conditions to enable fully off-the-grid operation and this requires at least five square meters of said consumer-grade panels. With much of the usage occuring outs
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dunno for your original comment... it kind of made it see
How many trees... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How many trees... (Score:5, Funny)
but if i plant trees then there will be too much shade to run my solar PC, you insensitive clod!
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trees and solar (Score:3, Insightful)
With that said, solar PV *works* and works well, and is affordable now if you extrapolate probable electricity costs for a
Re:trees and solar (Score:4, Insightful)
It works if you ignore that it has a poor energy/dollar ratio as compared to a wind turbine. Even if you ignore all other short comings of solar photovoltaic cells, you still won't get away from this simple fact. Wind power is cheaper. MUCH cheaper. Of course, on life cycle costs modern nuclear power plants are cheaper still, but I suspect you don't like those or won't believe me, so I'm using wind power instead. It doesn't really matter, the conclusion is still the same.
There is one advantage to solar however, and it is why you use it on satellites and other remote installations. It requires very little maintenance, no refuelling, and it is extremely portable. In most applications a battery will prove to be more suitable, but in certain niche applications where recharging or refuelling is impractical ( as it is on a satellite or Mars probe ) solar cells are popular.
For laptops I'd rate it as simply stupid. A simple conservation of energy calculation against incoming insulation and the capacity of a Li-ion battery should make this obvious. Maybe if you are studying the ecology of a remote pacific Island or something, but for normal consumers it is just a waste of cash.
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check your maps for a better idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been into alternative energy since the 60s (you??) when I first worked with my dad and we built from scratch some solar heating for our swimming pool (added a month decent swimming both spring and fall for only a couple hundred bucks and some labor), and since that time as a hobbiest and also it was my business for a few years (might be again possibly, the interest has picked up a lot this past year with all the energy cost increases), by actually "doing* stuff with it, everything from solar thermal space heating and solar water heating for household use to making biofuel ethanol and methane, working on superinsulated structures (several of those, best dollars you can spend is more insulation and better windows), etc. etc, along with solar PV and wind. I am fully aware of the pluses and minuses of this or that technique and what stuff costs, etc. This isn't theoretical casual web board commentary from me, it is hands on experience. I don't write code, so I don't comment about that a whole lot, but with alternative energy I can speak from some significant experience. I don't claim to be the expert's expert, because I am not, but I do have a lot of hands on with this stuff and try to keep up with the industry in general terms. And it worked just swell with that laptop, and it also ran a reading light and a small TV and a radio at the same time during the evenings, it wasn't stupid at all, it "just worked" for relatively cheap money, and it has been long paid off and the same rig still works fine, even that original single battery that is going on ten years old now works fine, and the larger battery bank is 8 years old now and works fine.
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not much to it... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Trees clean up pollution...how exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's something many environmental types love to ignore. They spend large amounts of money on things that have pretty small environmental benefits, and then say "every little bit counts" and so forth. Whereas what they should be asking is "how could I spend this money so as to do the most good/least damage to the environment?"
"They" are "ignoring it" because trees aren't the largest source of oxygen on the planet- phytoplankton in the oceans are. I've seen numbers as high as 90%, but I think most scientists would agree it is "more than half."
They" are "ignoring it" because trees don't remove industrial pollutants, they don't bring much in the way of renewable energy (they do have lots of side benefits, like preventing erosion, providing habitat for ecosystems, shading the ground and buildings from solar radiation in hot areas, providing renewable construction materials, etc) and so on. Planting trees does jack shit to address the pollution from power plants (more than a third of the United States electricity comes from coal, of which the soot contains radioactive particles among other things), planes, trains, and trucks.
The problem here is not that manufacturers aren't trying; it's that these companies make a business out of reselling other people's stuff. That Dell laptop was not actually designed by Dell; Apple is one of the few companies to design in-house. Dell goes shopping each year in Asia and sees what OEM laptops it likes, and then slaps their label on 'em.
What is needed is a company other than Advanced Energy Group slapping a $1400 price tag on what is essentially:
Far as I can see, they're making a 100% profit margin ON TOP OF RETAIL PRICES for all those components. The problem with most solar "technologies" is that everyone is exceptionally greedy. If they priced the stuff with more reasonable profit margins, they'd sell quite a bit more of 'em.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The point I was attempting to make, "would you rather sell a nickle twenty times, or a dollar just once?" is an attempt to illustrate why, exactly, it is that profit margins are so high on low-volume electronics -- or anything else of low volume, for that matter.
Yeah, sure, they could drop the price and sell a lot more of the photovoltaic kits.
But they're not trying to sell PV kits, per se, but they are instead
Re:How many trees... (Score:4, Funny)
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And so begins the rush.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok everyone, I feel a hearty round of kumbaya coming on.... **ducks the vegetables**
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Once again copying Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Pics here [sinanco.com].
Someone told me that one of the *old* powerbooks has a replacable top panel in which there was some sort of official apple solar panel option. I did some googling but couldn't find any evidence of that.
Bah (Score:5, Funny)
Or build your own for $1000 less (Score:5, Informative)
This is essentially the same thing: a solar panel, battery charger, deep-cycle battery, and (optionally if you don't have a 12V laptop adaptor) a power inverter. The solar cell is what costs the most. The battery is what weighs the most.
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I doubt if they even want to sell any. Do you think Dell wants to be taking support calls about solar panels? They probably deliberately priced it unattractively.
You're underestimating the size of the solar panel (Score:3, Informative)
The solar panel suggested in your link is an 18-watt ($175) solar panel, and is inadequate to charge the 60-Ah battery included with the Xantrex Xpower 1500 Powerpack. A complete charge would take several days of full sun.
The Lenovo & Dell packages include a 110-watt solar panel, which sells for about $6-700 dollars at Real Goods [gaiam.com] or Mr. Solar [mrsolar.com].
For $1500, you could by a decent laptop for $1000, and t
But... (Score:3, Funny)
Joking aside, this is something I have been toying with for the past few months. I have a couple of polycrystaline panels on the roof of the workshop and a small LV controller/wet battery arrangement. Getting LV PSUs for standard PC hardware is a pain, though. They are available, and the beauty of them is that you don't have to faff about with DC-AC inverters, but they're more than double the price of a high-end AC PSU.
There are also those small PSU modules for the likes of Via's EPIA mini-ITX boards that will supply the other voltages from a single 12V feed. The main problem with these is that they supply the board with 12V directly from the source. With Lead-acid and solar, you can bet that this will vary with load, time of day, weather and other factors. The best solution for off-grid solar is a 24V system with a real 24V DC-DC PSU that will regulate the 12V rails. As soon as I am comfortable remortgaging the house I may get one...
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but it doesn't support Eclipse.
Chris Mattern
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Is it possible to be green and stupid? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you really want to save the planet take that $1300 and use it for a down payment on a ground source heat pump for your home.
Doesn't help.. need an "inside-out" online UPS (Score:2)
If anyone from APC or Belkin is reading this... what I want is a reasonably-priced UPS that takes AC power and DC power in and connects to 2 banks of (user-provided) batteries. One bank is for interruptions, the other is to store enough power tha
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.outbackpower.com/ [outbackpower.com]
My dad has one of these in his house. When the batteries are topped off, it kicks over an auxiliary load (part of the rest of the house such as freezer and some additional lights) and when that drops the charge, it switches the auxiliary load back to shore power. His computers used for video editing of home movies is on the solar system 24/7. The solar system and windmill is his UPS. His system provides about 30% of his total load. It still d
What i would like to see is Bike powered setups (Score:3, Interesting)
Low power consumption is a more worthwhile goal. (Score:3, Insightful)
A more worthwhile goal is just to reduce the power consumption of your PC. The computer referred to in TFA draws 45 W, which is nice and low. I would just call that a victory and stop there. When I built my most recent machine, I decided to go for low power, and without using any particularly exotic hardware, I managed to get it down to 98 W, including the monitor, when the CPU is idle. It's a nice, snappy computer, with a dual-core AMD x64 CPU. If you're shopping for a power supply, make sure and get an 80PLUS model. Another reasonable thing to do, if you're concerned about your impact on the environment, is if you're just going to do word processing, programming, and web browsing, don't buy a gaming machine with a video card that gets hot enough to fry an egg.
The solar thing being discussed in the article is clearly a silly gimmick. You'd get more environmental bang for the buck by installing photovoltaics on the roof (and that's an option for businesses as well as homeowners). YMMV, but where I live in Southern California we get a lot of sun, and my roof faces south, so photovoltaics ended up being a good deal for me. (It's hard to estimate how long the investment will take to pay for itself, because it depends sensitively on how much electric rates go up in the future. The historical trend has always been up, but it's hard to predict exactly how much more rates will go up in, say, the next 10 years.) There is at least one theoretical situation in which a special-purpose solar panel for a specific device can make sense, and that's where you have a device that uses a lot of power, and can run on DC. The classic example is pool pumps. Pool pumps tend to be insane power hogs, and they use DC motors, so you can actually be more efficient by using special-purpose photovoltaics than plugging into the AC from a general-purpose PV system's inverter. A computer can also run on DC, and I believe in some big data centers they do use hardware that runs on DC, because it saves the electricity that would have been wasted by inefficiency in the individual computers' power supplies. If you were running such a center in an area with a lot of sun, and you had some roof space available, it could certainly be smart to get a big PV system installed, without an inverter, to supply DC to the machines.
There are a couple things they could do easily. (Score:3, Insightful)
- Design the power supplies and charge controllers of laptops to accept reasonably "wild" voltages on the input jack, publish the specs and limits, and approve direct connection to panels or 12v renewable energy systems. Alternatively they could make available an INEXPENSIVE charging brick that accepts such voltages on its input.
By 'reasonably "wild"' I mean the voltages that would appear off, say, a 12v panel (about 14.5v) or a 12V renewable-energy battery bank (about 13.5, up to 14.something during equalization). Disconnect at a minimum charge to protect batteries from undercharge would be a good idea, too. (Make it resistant to voltage spikes from switching of inductive loads and it could also be plugged directly into a cigarette lighter in a car as well.)
Down-converter bricks for 24 and 48 volt systems would be good, too. Working through one step of conversion, rather than running the system's big (and thus lossy) inverter to get power up to 120VAC for a standard brick and then bringing it back down to what the laptop wants, would be a big win.
- Improve power management (including clock-speed management, disk shutdown, and screen backlighting control) for lowered power consumption when not needed for heavy crunch or display. (For linux: Provide the hooks for the open software to do this.)
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Re:ACE OF BASS DIED FOR YOUR SINS (Score:4, Funny)
Best AC comment EVER. Way to go as far off-topic as humanly possible (without, of course, meta-commenting on the hilarity of an AC comment).
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