Eli5 – How does solar power actually work?
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In general, sunlight is a form of energy, so you collect the energy, convert it to a useful form, and there you go.
The specifics of how it actually works depends on the type of solar power you’re talking about. If you’re using solar power to provide light, then the technology can be as simple as a skylight. If you want heat, then you can concentrate the sunshine using parabolic mirrors or magnifying glasses. Usually you would focus the sunlight on black pipes which contain water. The water gets hot and is pumped (sometimes passively) to where it is needed. The bigger the surface area, the more heat is collected. Some places use intense solar power to destroy toxic waste.
If you want electricity, you could use the heat gathering techniques described above to boil water, make steam, and turn turbines linked to generators. Or you could use solar-electric cells.
Solar cells work by the photons in the sunlight imparting enough energy to a semiconductor material to knock an electron loose from its “home” atom. The electrons so loosened repel each other, and push each other down the wire to the load. They then return via the other wire, to the dark side of the cell.
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