BY DANIKA MOIR
Until recently, the only forms of solar energy that have been made available are big, bulky, and expensive. However, the company Inergy was able to cut their latest innovation, the Kodiak, to 75 per cent of the weight of the nearest solar generator competitor. It is small and light enough to carry around, put in a car, and even put on a bookshelf.
The Kodiak is small and light enough for a child to carry, making it the smallest solar generator on the market.
The Kodiak is safer and cleaner than a gas generator, being powered by solar energy. This also means that you don’t need to be constantly buying gas for it. Just simply plug it into your car, an outlet, or use the solar panels to power it. It has an outlet for everything. The Kodiak can power a 50” LED TV for 16 hours on one battery, charge a laptop over 20 times, and charge a smartphone over 100 times.
The Kodiak is priced at $1,767 for five solar panels and the Kodiak system itself, $1,260 for the system and one panel, or one 50-watt Predator panel sold at $140. Though the current prices are 30 per cent lower than what they will be once the product becomes more successful, it is still much cheaper and efficient than those of the competitors. A Goal Zero Yeti 1250 sells for $1,600, and that is just for the one hundred pound power pack. The Goal Zero Nomad 100 watt solar panel sells for $750, a large jump from the $140 solar panels that Inergy sells.
Compared to the prices of competitors, the Kodiak is the cheapest option for an emergency generator.
Though the Kodiak is priced close to $2,000, it is well worth the investment, whether you use it for camping off-grid, or keep it for an emergency. It is also much more environmentally friendly than a gas powered generator by being powered by the sun or energy as opposed to gas.
Image sources: newsledge.com, indiegogo.com, treehugger.com
