Sons of the Forest: How to Get and Use Solar Panels

Sons of the Forest Patch 3 has brought Solar Panels to the island, and this buildable can brighten up your bases. With that in mind, you’re wondering how to get and use them. If you want to stop using torches in your structures, replacing them with light bulbs powered by Solar Panels is a good idea. 

Where to Find Solar Panels in Sons of the Forest

Solar Panels are scattered around Site 2. They can spawn around crates and inside bunkers. They’re fairly large rectangular panels with dark glass cut into dozens of subsections, so they’re hard to miss.

I found my first Solar Panel in a bunker next to one of the 3D Printer locations on the western side of the island. I found another at an abandoned campsite. Needless to say, there are many places to find Solar Panels as you explore the island, so keep an eye out for them. 

As of this writing, Solar Panels can’t be crafted, but we’ll update this guide if that becomes a possibility. 

How Do You Use Solar Panels? 

Screenshot by Gameskinny

So how do you use Solar Panels in Sons of the Forest? To use Solar Panels, you’ll need a few things: 

• Ramp
• Wire
• Light Bulbs

Once you have those in hand, the steps for using Solar Panels are relatively straightforward. Here are the steps you need to take: 

• Build a ramp. Solar Panels must be placed on a slanted surface. This guide to building ramps in Sons of the Forest tells you how to make the structure.
  • Build the ramp on top of your roof if you want lights inside your house or primary structure. Build a ramp on the ground outside to create an outdoor lighting structure. Here’s how to build a roof in Sons of the Forest if you need help there. 

• Add Wire to the ramp’s logs and hang a Light Bulb from the Wire.
  • You can add more arches made of logs and continue running Wire along them to hang more Lights across a span.
  • Alternatively, you can run Wire down the logs if you place the ramp on your roof and then along the ceiling of your structure to get electricity from the panel to the inside of your building.

The addition of electricity and simple lighting by way of Solar Panels can brighten your bases in Sons of the Forest, and it might hint at more complex structures coming in the future. For now, you can check out more Sons of the Forest guides for the latest update, including how to get Night Vision Goggles or how to get the Knight V.

Featured Image by Gameskinny.