From gas-guzzling supercars and yachts to estates that suck enough power to supply small towns, the conventional lifestyles of the rich and famous are not what most people would call “green.” Opulence and thriftiness just don’t go together. After all, if you have enough money to use energy frivolously, why not?
For more socially conscious types who don’t agree with this mantra, the Canadian design firm Intelligent Forms has been working on a catalog of items that attempt to meld the two seemingly contradictory concepts of luxury and efficiency without compromising on either end. Its latest product, the SOLo Lounge Table, offers a contemporary design suitable for extravagant homes, but also soaks up the sun to serve as a free power station for gadgets.
Measuring 3.5 feet long and 2.5 feet wide, the SOLo occupies roughly the same space as a conventional coffee table, but with a striking steel-and-glass design that sets it apart visually. Its glass tabletop shelters an array of silicon solar panels beneath, along with a thick metal shell for holding the panel’s electronic components and storage. Tubular legs bent into a V shape with casters at their ends support the table, and enable it to roll when not locked in place. Besides the tell-tale gridlines of solar panels, the only other exterior clue of a higher function is a discrete LCD screen that serves as a system monitor.
Image Courtesy of Intelligent Forms
Opening a blue-lined metal drawer in the side of the SOLo reveals its high-tech side: a USB port, cigarette-lighter-style car port, and a conventional three-prong outlet. All are powered by the unobtrusive solar grid in the table’s surface, which the company says generates and stores about 17 kilowatts of electricity per year. That’s enough for 6,300 mobile phone charges, 8,400 digital camera charges, or 168 laptop computer charges, according to Intelligent Forms.
Obviously, the table needs generous sunlight to pull off those numbers, so if you’re planning to use it at your Alaskan mansion, results may vary. The company recommends placing the table outdoors or in exposed interior environments that get plenty of light (think floor-to-ceiling windows) to get the best performance. Of course, if you wheel it out onto your patio, you may want to keep an eye on it to make sure your high-end furniture doesn’t mysteriously slip off in the night with your laptop, cell phone, and MP3 player in tow.
Though it may seem like just a box of batteries with a solar array on top, the table actually has brains to it as well. The system monitor can calculate peak hours of the day for energy harvesting with its Maximum Power Point Tracker, and it even has a built-in Bluetooth radio to share this and other data with compatible wireless devices. A charge controller keeps the batteries topped off without overcharging them, and the entire glass tabletop lifts on hinges for access the guts if need be.
Although Intelligent Forms hasn’t yet released pricing data for the table, we wouldn’t expect to think of it as an investment. With the average U.S. price for electricity hovering just under 10 cents per kilowatt hour, a year of using the SOLo as much as possible probably wouldn’t shave any more than $1.70 off the electricity bill. From a practical perspective, though, it could save you the effort of running cables to power devices outdoors, and if nothing else, it’s a conversation piece that’s helping, in its own little way, to ease the burden on traditional power sources. More information on the SOLo Lounge Table can be found at Intelligent Forms.
