Recent developments in solar technology have now put solar power within the reach of everyone.

Until a few years ago, solar panels were relatively bulky, inefficient, and rather heavy to lug around – and, on top of all this, very expensive. In other words, not very practical for the average person.

Solar Power and solar technology have advanced rapidly in the last few years. It and has come to the point where the use of solar energy is within the reach of the average person.

You can now buy relatively inexpensive lightweight portable solar panels (or portable solar chargers, as they are sometimes called) that will recharge your cell phone, iPod, MP3 player, or any from a host of other small electronic devices. There are even some medium size portable solar chargers that allow you to recharge your laptop batteries. And some even will run your laptop.

In effect, you could move your office to the beach if you wanted to, set up a portable solar panel and power your laptop with solar energy right at the beach. Your boss might however disagree and in any case you might want to make sure that your laptop screen is not overly reflective.

In the field of portable solar power, we have two different type of solar chargers. Both of have their uses and advantages.

There are two types of portable solar battery chargers on the market. Both come in different models and sizes.

There is the portable solar battery, which has rechargeable batteries built into the it; and there is the portable solar battery charger that simply comes as a small foldable or flexible solar panel that stores easily.

Solio manufactures the type of Portable Solar Charger which uses internal rechargeable batteries. The advantage of this type of solar charger is that you can let it sit in the sun and collect solar energy, which it uses to recharge the internal batteries, and once the internal batteries are charged, you can hook up your cell phone, iPod, MP3 Player, or whatever electronic device you want to recharge and charge it. You can also operate your device directly form this portable solar charger.

As the solar energy collected is stored within the internal batteries you can use it any time of day whenever and wherever. An additional advantage of this type of solar battery charger is that they usually also allow you to charge it from regular wall sockets and sometimes even from your cigarette lighter socket in your car or vehicle. So you are not dependent just on the sun. Technically we would call such a solar device a hybrid solar charger, as you are able to charge it from more than one source of energy.

The other type of solar charger/solar battery charger, is simply a small Portable Solar Panel that can be either folded, or rolled up. These tend to be more powerful than the previously mentioned type and lighter to carry around. Due to their larger power output these can be used to power or recharge larger electrical devices such as laptops, radios, small TVs and coolers.

This makes them an ideal accessory for a beach party or a picnic. A small portable solar charger would be enough to power a cooler to keep your food fresh or the beers cold. I am sure we will see some coolers coming out shortly that have built in solar panels to operate them. As the solar panel would most likely not need to be larger than the lid itself and could be incorporated into the lid of the cooler.

Such panels in even in small sizes provide enough solar energy to power Ipods, MP3s and cell phones and lots of other small devices. So if you are spending the day on the beach this would most likely cover all your electrical needs.

If you have any questions as to how powerful a solar charger needs to be in order to run a particular device, please see Solar Charger Guide.