Dear Annie,
When I saw this lamp, I thought of your work space. As your friend and colleague, I know the area where you write your books, articles and blogs is bathed in natural light and abuzz with activity during the day. Since I write about green home design (see below), and like you, have no stake in the products that I sometimes write about, I thought you might want to share this product with your readers. The lamp is just about to hit the IKEA stores. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to harness all that illumination for the cool spring evenings?

This lamp is designed by Nicolas Cortolezzis and is called the SUNNAN .It features solar cells to transform sunlight into electrical energy. It requires no electrical connections. The lamp runs on solar cells that transform sunlight into electricity.

Annie, I know you and I do everything in our green power to save energy and reduce our family’s environmental footprint. I like the whole idea of this lamp because LED light consumes 70% less energy and has at least 4 times longer life than incandescent bulbs in similar decorative lighting.

Here’s the kicker…It is $19.99 and comes with two rechargeable AA batteries for solar cell driven products! The recharging time is 9-12 hours in sunlight, but over 12 hours on a cloudy day.

The colors are eco-chic enough for you and I, and the price is right for our kids on a college budget. Just think about how cool they would think we were if these lamps landed in their college postboxes!

What do you think?
–Ronnie, Author of EcoNesting blog

Dear Ronnie,
Wow! I think the lamp looks great and surely eco-friendly. While the lamp isn’t a replacement for natural light, natural light power’s the lamp, and that is great. Thanks for giving us the heads up about this.