How solar panels actually work?
In: 75
Imagine you had a bucket of water and you could shake it back and forth. This could create ripples or splashes which are technically “energy” but they are not very useful.
But what if you had a one way valve so water could splash into one side of the bucket but couldn’t splash back? Now you have a full side and an empty side. You could pour water from the full side and use it to turn a waterwheel, or do some other useful work.
That’s basically what solar panels are. The one-way valve, a *diode*, allows you to capture and make use of the otherwise chaotic movement of electrons caused when the sun hits them
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