15 Amazing DIY Solar Projects You Should Try in 2021

If you are a creative person and wanted to create some interesting projects using the natural resources such as solar, wind or other type of free energy than you have come to the right place.

There are hundreds of mind blowing projects floating around the internet which uses solar, wind and other nature’s resources to run and impress the world by showing what kinds of impressive feats one can pull off.

Here are 15 DIY solar projects where you will learn you can lit-up your home, design your own solar charger, and perhaps even save a lot of money by using these DIY solar projects at home. There really is something for everyone in this blog post.

Some of these DIY solar projects required you to buy some tools, equipment such as solar panel. You have to make sure get some knowledge about what you’re working with and have the right materials.

Our main focus of this blog post is to encouraging our readers to use and build green and Eco-friendly products into their daily lives.

Without a further ado, here are list of 15 best DIY solar projects that are green and environment friendly.

1 – Build Your Own Solar-Powered Plane

This project will show you how to create your own solar powered air-plane in easy step-by-step instructions; it’s inspired by the solar Impulse plane.

• Project level: Expert
• Investment: High
• Things needed:
  • Glider
  • Electric Motor
  • Monokote
  • Solar Panels
  • See complete items list

2 – Stylish Solar Lantern from an Old Chandelier

Probably one of the neatest things you can do with your old chandelier, which is lying in your backyard, is turn it into an elegant solar lantern which you can use in your outdoor garden.

It cost Jennifer Tuohy less than $20 to make this solar lantern. He term this project as one of the biggest “bang for your buck” up-cycle projects he have ever done and rightly so because the end result is awesome.

• Project level: Beginner – Easy
• Investment: Small
• Things needed:
  • An old chandelier
  • 5 solar-powered landscape post lights
  • Brasso and super fine steel wool
  • Small handsaw

3 – Make a Solar Phone Charger

This DIY solar project is our favorite one – these directions will help you make a portable solar powered phone charger that is tested with iPod Touch and can be used with other Apple products such as iPad etc. It should not be hard for those of you who had some experience playing with electronic tools.

• Project level: Medium
• Investment: Small
• Things needed:
  • 6v mini solar panel
  • Torn apart 12v USB charger circuit (2 amps – iPod compatible)
  • Phone’s charger cable (interchangeable)
  • Flexible and fold-able plastic card

4 – Create Solar Powered Sun Jar

Why buy a solar decorative light when you can make your own at home at save lot of money! This DIY project will give you the step by step instruction for creating your own sun jar at home. The project requires no advanced soldering or technical knowledge but it’s an added advantage if you do have some experience.

• Project level: Expert
• Investment: Medium
• Things needed:
  • Glass jar
  • Solar light
  • Frosting spray

5 – Eco-Friendly 3 Wheeler that runs on Solar Energy

This is an interesting three wheel vehicle project created at University of Engineering and Technology Lahore in Pakistan that runs on solar energy. A solar panel is used to charge the battery and the battery force the DC motor. These instructions and tutorial will show you how to create this Eco-friendly bike and take a ride without spending the money on fuel.

See the vehicle in action:

• Project level: Expert
• Investment: High
• Things needed:
  • Solar panel
  • DC motor
  • Battery
  • Tire set
  • See complete items list

6 – Solar-Powered Bike Light

Go on a ride at night on your bike without worrying about darkness because you can make a solar powered bike light from your empty deodorant cane. This article will show you how to create a bike light that runs on free energy source. It is very simple to make and doesn’t use any costly items.

• Project level: Simple
• Investment: Low
• Things needed:
  • Deodorant stick
  • Solar light
  • Silicone adhesive

7 – Solar Powered Portable WiFi Repeater

This is a perfect piece of device you want to take with you while you drive in your car or goes away from your home and you need to be connect to internet – this portable and easy to handle solar powered WiFi repeater is very helpful in such condition.

Check this video for how to create this interesting project:

• Project level: Medium
• Investment: Medium
• Things needed:
  • An old/new wireless router
  • Solar panel
  • 5 AA batteries
  • An empty cigar box

8 – Steampunk Solar Night Light

This is an affordable and cheap DIY project that lets you make a steampunk solar night light. Just find a suitable place at your home to place this beautiful night light and enjoy the benefits of clean technology.

• Project level: Medium
• Investment: Small
• Things needed:
  • Block of wood
  • Hollow dowel
  • Cabinet handle
  • See complete items list

9 – Making A Solar-Powered Car

This green DIY project will help you make a car that is consume sun energy via a solar panel and converts it into an electric power and run the car using the generated power. This project involves a bit of prior technology knowledge and it is a bit of a challenge, but it isn’t too difficult, and has a cool factor.

• Project level: Expert
• Investment: High
• Things needed:
  • DC Motor
  • Solar Panel
  • Gears or pulley
  • Adhesive material & tape
  • See complete items list

10 – Solar Water Distiller

Whether you want to use it for your home, office or for camping, this DIY project will help you create an extremely durable and useful solar water distiller. This water distiller produces up to 1 gallon of water/day; you can off course increase it by making changes in the making of your own. Note that this design is officially patent pending.

• Project level: Medium
• Investment: Medium
• Things needed:
  • Flexible aluminized Mylar sheet
  • Black paint
  • See complete items list

11 – Solar Powered Raspberry Pi

These instructions will help you run your Raspberry Pi on solar-power. It’s an easy project with little knowledge of how to do the basics of electronics, but we wouldn’t recommend this as a beginner project because it will cost you a bit more than the other beginners project do.

• Project level: Easy
• Investment: Medium
• Things needed:
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Solar Panel
  • Battery
  • Car power socket
  • USB car power adapter

12 – Motorized Sun Tracker

Get most of the power from the Sun by using this Sun Tracker. Normally you have 2 options either move the solar panel manually to direction of Sun (tedious and practically not feasible) or built your own solar-powered sun tracker project at home, which rotate itself to the sun’s direction automatically.

Here is a video walk-through of assembling the solar tracker with detailed explanation

See the Sun Tracker in action

• Project level:Expert
• Investment:High
• Things needed:
  • Solar Panel
  • 120VAC to 24VAC 2A Step-down Transformer
  • AC Inverter – 200-250 Watt 12V DC to 120V AC Power Inverter
  • See complete items list

13 – Solar Kiln

You never know what kind of conditions you’ll have to be prepared for. Check out this solar kiln for example, it is basically a box with a greenhouse roof that produces hot air with an internal solar collector – the kiln is also made completely solar with the addition of a photo-voltaic solar panel.

• Project level: Medium
• Investment: High
• Things needed:
  • 2 DC fans
  • Oven thermometer
  • 65 watts photo-voltaic solar panel
  • See complete items list

14 – Build Your Own Solar Panel

Solar panels are costly to buy and making them at home is both cost saving and very interesting DIY project. If you are wondering how to build a solar panel, you have come to right place. In this DIY solar project, the author has step-by-step instructions and have used common, inexpensive and easy to acquire materials to create a solar panels for home use.

• Project level: Expert
• Investment: Medium
• Things needed:
  • Solar Cells
  • Lumber (Timber)
  • Jones Plug
  • See complete items list

15 – Solar Powered Lawnmower

If you have a small garden then a hand push mower would be adequate but if you own a large garden you need a lawn mower and buying it is costly, so why not build your own solar-powered lawn mower with fraction of money!

Throughout the article, the author shows you guys how to make a solar power lawnmower with easy to follow steps. This DIY project is not suitable for beginners.

• Project level: Expert
• Investment: High
• Things needed:
  • Electric motor (Dayton 3/4HP, 12VDC)
  • Battery (Sun Xtender 40 AH)
  • Solar panel (unisolar 11 Watt)
  • See complete items list

We hope you enjoy these Do It Yourselves (DIY) Eco-friendly projects. We encourage you to don’t just follow the steps and copy the project as is, instead make improvement to the already existed project.

Feel free to share your project with use, we will keep this page updated, so if you feel anything is missing on the list or want to share your own project with us then contact us and we’ll more than happy to add your project(s) to the list.

Best of luck with your project – Happy innovating.