Ooooh, Pretty Solar-Powered LED Lightsâ€¦

JUN 10

Written by Jaymi Heimbuch on 10/06/08

Few people can resist beautiful colored lights spinning around, especially when they’re EcoGeek-friendly solar-powered LED lights on a ferris wheel. Santa Monica, California fitted its famous Pacific Wheel with 160,000 new lights. The lights, hooked to an image controller, can make luminous designs like hearts, snowflakes, and other fun pictures as the ferris wheel spins. The lights are powered by the same solar panels that power the wheel itself. The panels can produce 71,000 kWh, plenty of juice to turn the 90-foot-high wheel and lighten the hearts of up to 800 passengers each hour, not to mention the thousands of folks strolling by staring at the lovely lights. Maybe next time they update it, they can paint the wheel and make it glow…