Solar cell phone charger performance in indoor environment

Utilization of solar energy as a power source has been one of the most active fields in science and engineering. One of the recent developments is to use a solar panel to recharge a cell phone. In order to validate the feasibility of this promising application, we conducted experiments on solar cell efficiency under the indoor environment using a typical commercial solar panel. Several types of indoor conditions were investigated. Our results indicate that, within sunshine illuminated rooms or under direct light exposure from a lamp, the power requirement for cell phone charging can be satisfied or provided to some extent. However, in the cloudy condition or under normal fluorescent lighting, the solar cell does not produce enough power to charge a cell phone.