Executive summary:
* we'll have 200W of solar power this year!
* powering the dome light show system with it
* there'll be enough left over for charging camera/radio/light batteries and maybe some fans.
* I'll set out three 12V hubs around the camp for plugging in 12V auto accessories.

Details:

I'm bringing 200W of solar power. I've built a kind of weird frame which allows us to rotate it by hand a couple of times a day to better match the sun. I figure even with no turning and with a little shadowing by tents nearby, we can store about 1200 watt-hours. That means we can run something that uses 100 watts for about 12 hours.

Jack and I are bringing our lighting project which will use about 180 watts. If we run the lighting project about 5 hours a night, that's around 900 watt-hours, leaving us about 300 watt-hours.

That's enough to charge people's camera batteries, run some fluorescent lights, or even run swamp cooler fans for a small part of the day. It's around enough power to recharge 16 AA batteries and also run 4 swamp coolers made from 2 PC fans each for about 5 hours.

So I'm going to provide three hubs around the camp for power. I'll run and bury the cabling. Each hub will be a plastic box with a 12V car plug 1-to-4 splitter. If people want to use a little bit of power to charge batteries or power lights (hopefully fluorescent) in your tent, you can run an 12V auto extension cable from the hub. If you REALLY need real 110V wall power, we can probably provide it for a few things but we'd like to avoid the situation where someone plugs in their hairdryer or microwave and drains the battery in 20 minutes (also setting all our wiring on fire). (I know you all are smart enough that you wouldn't bring a microwave.)

In the event we find ourselves really short on sun power, Jack will top off the battery from his generator. Jack also says he may provide a battery charger at the power box near the "public dome".

If you *do* use power from the camp power system, I would ask that you occasionally check out the solar panels and rotate them to face the sun. If half a dozen of us check it out once a day each, we'll really increase the power we store from the sun. I'll send out some pictures early next week of the solar panel array.

(If things go well this year, maybe next year we can run cute little 110V power outlets to everyone's tents.)

As an aside, solar panels are very expensive and not particularly efficient. I say this not to bring attention to the cost but rather to explain why we have so little solar power available. 200W of solar panels is more than 16 square feet (basically a square 4 feet on a side) and a watt of solar panel costs around $4. I'm still excited about the idea of almost-completely-free power, so one of my gifts to the camp this year is the power system. Afterwards I get to take it home afterwards and plan to power some of my computer equipment with it.