Okay, how do you know solar has become trendy? When some dinky online company called Backup-Power.ca starts selling backpacks and camera/computer bags touted as “solar bags” — a design by a company called Eclipse Solar Gear. Basically, they’re bags with a little transparent pocket containing PV cells. You can apparently plug your cellphones and laptops into a connector in the bag, as long as you’ve got your own cigarette lighter adapter. What you get out of that effort is a solar trickle charge that, well, might give you a little juice over a long time.

Cool, I guess. Great novelty gift for the environmentalist at heart. But beyond that, I think products such as these — as borderline useless as they might be — are great for building awareness of these technologies. Personally, my fav is the purse that’s lined inside with LEDs and powered by a battery that, of course, is charged by the solar PV shell on the purse. It’s dark in those damn purses. Gotta get my wife one so she can find the keys at night. 

Okay, how do you know solar has become trendy? When some dinky online company called Backup-Power.ca starts selling backpacks and camera/computer bags touted as “solar bags” — a design by a company called Eclipse Solar Gear. Basically, they’re bags with a little transparent pocket containing PV cells. You can apparently plug your cellphones and laptops into a connector in the bag, as long as you’ve got your own cigarette lighter adapter. What you get out of that effort is a solar trickle charge that, well, might give you a little juice over a long time.

Cool, I guess. Great novelty gift for the environmentalist at heart. But beyond that, I think products such as these — as borderline useless as they might be — are great for building awareness of these technologies. Personally, my fav is the purse that’s lined inside with LEDs and powered by a battery that, of course, is charged by the solar PV shell on the purse. It’s dark in those damn purses. Gotta get my wife one so she can find the keys at night. 

There’s so much talk these days about solar and big wind farms that small wind technology is often overlooked as a viable alternative in certain situations. I’m no pro in this area, and some of the small-wind designs that have been pitched to me look downright silly and seem to lack enough information to make an educated decision about the product. That said, there are some serious players in the market, and one in particular managed to attract some venture capital yesterday.

Southwest Windpower of Flagstaff, Ariz., the largest producer of small wind generators (400 watts to 3,000 watts) in North America, has been around for 20 years, but the booming interest in renewable power helped it attract $8 million (U.S.) series-B equity investment led by Rockport Capital Partners of Boston. The VC arm of Chevron Technology Ventures also participated in the financing.

“The capital will support… efforts to launch a new, lower cost, residential wind technology later this year,” the company said in a press release. “It is anticipated that this new technology will make it significantly cheaper — by up to 60 per cent — to produce wind energy on a residential scale.”

The company, which says it has produced more than 90,000 generators in two decades, says sales have increased by 50 per cent a year over the past two years. Obviously, there’s a huge market out there looking for this technology as an alternative to solar. In fact, the last time I wrote about small wind — in that case it was a vertical axis wind turbine being tested at McMaster University in Hamilton for urban use — the posting received quite a few hits. I think there are consumers and businesses out there craving more information about the technology.

BTW: If you go to Southwest Windpower’s site you’ll be able to pull up a list of distributors in Ontario. The site also provides some great information that will help you determine whether small wind is right for your situation.