Question: how do solar panles work

Mike Lee answered on 12 Mar 2014:

Solar panels work by taking light energy and changing it into electrical energy. Sun light is full of energy so if we could capture just 1% of it, and store in a battery we could have a supply electricity to the whole of the country.

Exactly how they work is slightly hard to explain. Imagine a deep well at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the well is some water. To get the water we need a bucket and rope to pull the water up. We could then throw the bucket down the hill.

For solar panels, there are some electrons sitting at the bottom of a well in a electrical circuit. Instead of a bucket and rope, light is used to pull the electrons out of the well, and they move down the hill as current, or electrical energy.