Why can't we use solar/wind energy to charge our cell phones?

A maintenance charger is usually powered by a small solar cell that provides a trickle charge to a battery on a sunny day. These devices help prevent ..... Your inverter is too powerful to use with that battery (if you use the full power of it, which is not the case with phone chargers and laptop). read more

But from the sounds of Nokia’s fairly downbeat assessment, we’re not going to be relying on the sun for our smartphones any time soon. For now, those of us determined to go solar will have to make do with a bulky solar-charging iPhone case. read more

The small solar cell could not provide a lot of power, however. To generate the charge needed for a 5- to 10-minute voice call, the phone had to absorb an hour's worth of solar energy. Still, the solar charging feature made sense given the markets the phone was aimed at. read more

The charge controller takes the energy from the solar panels or wind turbine and converts the voltage so it’s suitable for battery charging. The supply voltage for a 12V battery bank is about 16V. This allows charging lead acid to 14.40V (6 x 2.40V/cell) and Li-ion to 12.60 (3 x 4.20V/cell). read more