Solar Tube Skylights

A relatively recent innovation, solar tube skylights prove that not every type of solar lighting needs to work by converting sunlight into electricity for use later.

As with a normal skylight, the idea is not provide light at night but to provide as much bright light in the day time as possible. With regular skylights you basically get the light that comes in through the window and can illuminate the room space immediately below it. You can’t, for example, have have the light from the skylight on the roof illuminate your kitchen.

The clever thing about solar skylights is they include a mirrored tube – so the light can be carried away from the roof down into your home. Because the tube is flexible you don’t need an absolutely straight path between your roof and the room you want to send the light to. That said, the straighter the tube part of the solar skylight is the more efficient it will be.

The part that fits into the ceiling looks just like a normal light – only no wires and no electricity. Tubular solar skylights are great way to cut down your artificial lighting costs – both power bills and the cost of light bulbs – and work and live in as much natural light as possible.