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Joey has his whole house wired to a PV setup. Not really the same thing as mounting one on the back of a laptop: for one, you can make the panel bigger and thus
by jarek 13y ago
Joey has his whole house wired to a PV setup. Not really the same thing as mounting one on the back of a laptop: for one, you can make the panel bigger and thus get more energy quite easily. Having just the surface area of the laptop constrains you quite a bit. With current technology you can only get around 10-20 W out of a laptop-sized PV panel.
- DuskStar 13y agoI believe the panel unfolds from the back of the laptop, becoming 3x the size. 30-60W might not power a desktop replacement, but it's something like 10x what a 2013 mba 11" draws. (38WH battery, 11+hour battery life in optimal conditions)
- jarek 13y agoOh, triple unfold is a little more reasonable. Still, the 10-20 W was fairly optimistic; you might get the 20 W with a good panel with the laptop closed and the lid flat in noon sun. With the unfold it'd be enough power to charge and run an Atom laptop (charge at midday, use in shade earlier/later), but it's still not strictly comparable to Joey Hess's setup. Different scale, different purpose.