Solar Aid Goes Mobile!

Following the success of the Sun Hut, a solar information centre and static mobile phone charging station powered by solar energy, Solar Aid is set to be the Big Chill’s charity partner for 2009. As a result of this partnership, Firefly was commissioned by Solar Aid to develop a pair of roaming portable solar generators to charge mobile phones for use at the event this summer.

The aim of the project is to have a set of roaming phone chargers from which the public can receive a 15 minute booster charge which will enable them to send urgent text messages or make a call to find their lost friends.

Best of all, the profits will go straight back into bringing solar energy to the developing world. So, everyone is a winner; rural communities in Africa, the environment and the disorientated festival-goer!

Heading up the design of the charger, Paul Brain explains, “It is really exciting that Firefly have been given this opportunity to showcase the flexibility of the company and our ability to use mobile solar generators in diferent ways. The challenge of this project was finding the balance between having enough power whilst remaining light enough to move around a festival site. I think the design has achieved both goals.”

This project marks the start of a number of new portable solar generator products in development at Firefly Solar. Earlier in the summer Firefly successfully launched the new Pictor portable solar generator, a smaller solar generator capable of running smaller appliances.