And then I discovered the Goal Zero series at MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop). They make them as easy as plugging in a electrical plus. And so I bought one of the Boulder 100W Solar Panels. (I had to special order it, as they don't keep ones that big in stock, even in Toronto.) There is one cord from the Solar Panel that connects to the power bank. Easy peasy. And then the Power Bank has an LED display that lets you know how fast it's charging. This make it lots of fun. You can move the Solar Panel around and it lets you know how fast it's charging. It's so exciting to see the charging number going up.
So this one panel can charge about 40 watts per hour in the middle of winter on a good sunny day. The numbers mean something when you do the math. 40 watts per hour means the full 400 watts of the power bank could be charged in 10 hours. Obviously, there's not 10 hours of full sun in winter, so it's impossible to get a full charge per day if you use the full charge in one evening. But I also realized that for lights, charging phones and computers, and even my electric blanket, I don't need close to 400W in 24 hours. If I would buy a larger Power Bank that I could also use for cooking or heating, I would definitely have to buy more Solar Panels as well. But for starters, this is the easiest possible way into the Solar Panel world. I also learned that it's hard to keep Solar Panels charged in the winter, because almost as easy as the energy goes in, the cold also drains the battery, so you have to grab the Power Bank as the sun sets or the power simply drains back out. So much to learn, and you gotta just play around and figure it out like me.
