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I work in an office with many flourescent lights. Is it possible to use flourescent lighting to power solar panels to power an indoor decorative water feature? Or is this a dumb question?
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Hi Joe, thanks for registering with Solar Panel Talk. That's a great question you have.
The fluorescent lighting wouldn't work because the amount of energy and speed of light from fluorescent lighting isn't powerful enough to supply sufficient energy to the solar panels in order to power the water feature. Solar panels absorb energy from a specific wavelength of light. The fluorescent lighting flows at a different wavelength than the sun.
All light waves are waves of energy. The amount of energy in a light wave is proportionally related to its frequency. So high frequency light has high energy (sun) and low frequency light has low energy (FL). The solar panels are made for high frequencies of light.
Light also travels at different speeds. Light waves will slow down when they are surrounded in substances such as glass which is one of the causes of lower energy.
Let me know if that doesn't make sense and I'll try to explain it differently.
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