Santa Cruz, CA Lighthouse

Have you ever seen a lighthouse that was powered by solar energy? Or have you ever looked at a lighthouse during daylight and wondered if solar panels could power the light?

Today in many coastal towns there must be some green people looking to do this. Or maybe there are a few lucky lighthouse locations around the planet who have already begun taking advantage of excellent sunlight for electric needs.

There is no known recorded data on what the average roof space for lighthouse buildings is, but this lighthouse in the picture we will use as an example. It appears to have about lengths of about 20 feet by a width of 12 feet. That equals 240 square feet of roof that could have solar panels on-top. But since this roof could not possibly use all the space, let’s assume we can get 150 sq feet for panels. That would equal approximately 10 PV panels on the roof which would mean about 1.75 kW of solar panels.

A 1.75 kW system makes about 250kwh of electricity per month. Or about 8kwh each day. That means you could run a 800 watt light bulb for about 12 hours each night.

If an 800 watt light bulb can power a lighthouse, then maybe solar would be an option for many coastal towns.