Solar energy

Solar super power

Solar power is the most powerful energy available. And yet we use only a fraction of it, unlike trees, who have converted its energy into food trees for many millions of years.

Like trees, many insects use the sun's energy to power them up and their wings act like small solar panels.

Like trees, solar panels transfer the sunlight into energy.

The sunlight goes through different layers of the panel:

A cover glass
B: anti-reflective coating
C: contact grid
D: N-type silicon
E: P-type silicon
F: back contact

As the photons of sunlight hit the junction, their electrons bounce back up through the n-type silicon, causing a negative charge, while the neutrons carry on through the p-type silcon causing a positive charge...

This splitting of the charge is the critical point at which solar energy becomes converted and usable. As negative electrons hit the contact grid above them they can be conducted away (through wire) as a negative current. Connecting this wire to a light bulb and connecting the positive wire to the positive contact grid will demonstrate how a simple electric circuit can be made from a solar panel.