I used solar energy to watch England beat Mexico for free

• The Anker SOLIX portable solar panel and home battery let The Eco Experts watch England beat Mexico for free
• The battery charged in less than three hours
• Using it to watch Mexico v England only used 32% of its energy

Can you use solar energy to watch the World Cup? The answer is yes, and you can create free electricity by simply watching TV. 

I know because in the small hours of Monday morning, I did exactly that. I watched England beat Mexico in an epic World Cup knockout game powered by solar energy.

How did I do it? By plugging my TV into a home battery, the Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station, to be precise, which was brimming with solar energy having been charged up by an Anker SOLIX PS100 portable solar panel all Sunday. 

That means I was watching the heroics of Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka and the rest without spending any money or emitting any carbon because I was off the grid from 1.50am to 4.20am on Monday. 

The Anker SOLIX PS100 portable solar panel is a foldable 100W solar panel. It has a conversion efficiency of about 25%, which means a quarter of the sunlight it receives turns into energy. It weighs about three kilograms and has a handle when you fold it up. It’s perfect for connecting to portable batteries. 

The Anker SOLIX C300 portable power station has a 288Wh LiFePO4 battery, a 300W continuous output (600W surge), and multiple fast-charging USB ports to plug in several devices. It has a capacity of 288 wattage hours. 

Why did I watch Mexico v England using solar energy?

Because I wanted to show that it’s possible to enjoy something memorable by using clean energy. I also wanted to save some money, even though the TV only accounts for a very small portion of my energy bill. 

On average TVs only account for about 1-2% of an annual household energy bill and about 5% of an electronics bill. In money terms, this comes to something between £20 and £60 depending on how much you watch, under the current energy price cap. 

It’s not a huge amount, but I choose to think of it as free money. I’m on a Fixed Tariff Jan27 V2 with British Gas, with monthly payments of £24.03/mth. If I were to exclusively use my portable solar panel and battery to watch TV, I could in theory get roughly a month’s worth of electricity for free. 

That would of course rely on getting an abundance of solar energy to charge my battery. I have the space, my flat has a ‘winter garden’, a balcony encased by glass doors that you can open up, but I don’t have all-day sunshine. 

A solar panel can only produce energy when the sun is shining on it. My flat is in London’s docklands and I’m lucky enough that my building is at the end of a big redevelopment, meaning one whole side is not faced by another block. Instead, I get to enjoy a huge expanse of sky. 

As my flat faces east, my winter garden gets a lot of sunshine in the morning but little in the afternoon. This means I need to have my portable solar panel and battery connected and in my winter garden as early as possible, really 6am at the latest, to make the most of the sunshine. 

Charging my Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station using my Anker SOLIX PS100 portable solar panel takes anywhere from two to three hours out in my winter garden. I stood my solar panel up facing the sun at 8am on Sunday morning and connected it to my battery. It took two hours and 39 minutes to charge from near 0% to 100%. From there, I was able to watch one of the best World Cup games for free by plugging my regular three-pin plug into the socket on my battery. 

I plugged it in at 01:45, shortly before the national anthems were sung.

Here’s a breakdown of how much energy it used.

Match/energy timeline

• Kick-off. Mexico 0-0 England – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 96%

• 2nd minute. Mexico 0-0 England – Declan Rice yellow card – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 96%

• 8th Minute. Mexico 0-0 England – England first corner – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 94%

• 15th minute. Mexico 0-0 England – Jordan Pickford saves from Raul Jimenez – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 93%

• 23rd minute. Mexico 0-0 England – First hydration break – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 92%

• 26th minute. Mexico 0-0 England – Anthony Gordan shot on goal – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 91%

• 36th minute. Mexico 0-1 England – Jude Bellingham’s first goal – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 89%

• 38th minute. Mexico 0-2 England – Jude Bellingham’s second goal – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 89%

• 42nd minute – Mexico 1-2 England – Julian Quinones goal – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 88%

• 45 + 1 minute – Mexico 1-2 England – Raul Jimenez chance – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 87%

• 45+3 minute – Mexico 1-2 England – Raul Jimenez chance – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station:87%

• 45+4 minute – Mexico 1-2 England – Cesar Montes chance Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 87%
• Half-time – Mexico 1-2 England Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 86%

• 2nd half starters – Mexico 1-2 England Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 83%

• 49th minute – Mexico 1-2 England – Nico O’Reilly hits post Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 82%

• 54th minute – Mexico 1-2 England – Jarrell Quansah red card Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 81%

• 58th minute – Mexico 1-2 England – England awarded a penalty – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 80%

• 60th minute – Mexico 1-3 England – Harry Kane scores penalty for England  Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 80%

• 68th minute – Mexico 1-3 England – Mexico awarded a penalty: Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 78%

• 69th minute – Raul Jimenez goal – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 78%

• 71st minute – hydration break – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 78%

• 90 + 11 minute – Full time – Anker SOLIX C300 Portable station: 72%

The game was so exciting that I had forgotten that I had the TV plugged into something other than the wall socket – as expected, I experienced no dip in image or sound quality. Had there been a power cut, I wouldn’t have known.

Once the players’ rendition of Wonderwall and post-match analysis had finished, the energy had fallen to 68%, meaning I’d used just over a quarter of the free solar energy I’d generated on Sunday morning. I’ve watched one of the best World Cup games in living memory for free and I’ve got plenty more energy for Spain v Portugal tonight. 

Written By

Maximilian Schwerdtfeger Deputy editor

Max joined The Eco Experts as content manager in February 2024 and became deputy editor in 2025. He has written about sustainability issues across numerous industries, including maritime, supply chain, finance, mining, and retail. He has also written extensively for consumer titles like City AM, The Morning Star, and The Daily Express.

He has represented The Eco Experts on national television several times, including the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live and ITV Tonight .

In 2020, he covered in detail the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) legislation on sulphur emissions and its effects on the global container shipping market as online editor of Port Technology International.

He also explored the initiatives major container ports and terminals have launched in order to ship vital goods across the world without polluting the environment.

Since then, he has reported heavily on the impact made by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices on the supply chain of minerals, with a particular focus on rare earth mining in Africa.

As part of this, in 2022 Max visited mines and ports in Angola to hone in on the challenges being faced by one of the world’s biggest producers of rare earth minerals.

His most recent sustainability-related work came much closer to home, as he investigated the eco-challenges faced by independent retailers in the UK, specifically looking at how they can cut emissions and continue to thrive.

Max lives in South London and is an avid reader of books on modern history. He has also recently learned to play the game Mahjong and takes every opportunity to do so. He is also yet to find a sport he doesn’t enjoy watching.

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