I'm only half kidding. I'm a bit of a prepper and I have lots of powerbanks and devices that charge from USB but besides idling my truck I really had no other way to charge any of them in case of a long-term power outage which seemed a bit of an oversight on my part.

Not like this solves the issue. 30 watts (under ideal conditions) isn't much but it's a start.

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[–] SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Interesting. Where do you live?

Around here (Germany), most people get solar power first and THEN buy a battery, when they realize it's financially more feasible to use as much of the energy the generated themselves instead of using grid power.

[–] NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

We live in the US (Maryland). We're kind of rural, but not really that far out. A lot of folks in rural areas of the US have gasoline generators; this is just an alternative to that. The trees around here take out the power lines somewhat frequently and well... the state of the country makes us anxious. Around the time we bought the system, some right wing groups were floating ideas about shooting up electrical substations.

Anyway, if we were making the transition just for economics, we would also have gone in the reverse order. But we have two small kids, so we were worried about preparedness.

[–] SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

yeah, I get it. I know very few people who really have to make similar considerations, so naturally the thought process is different. Germany is fairly densely populated and even in more rural areas, like the one I live in, the power grid is pretty reliable. I can count the amont of power outages I experienced in my few decades of lifetime with my fingers, and when there is one it usually only lasts a few minutes to hours.

Nothing, a healthy person with a few supplies can't bridge easily.