Solar Energy

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Where does solar energy come from?

Solar means 'sun'. Even though the sun is 150 million km away we can use this power in our daily lives.

The sun's rays are made up of light and heat and even though it travels a long way to reach us, one hour's worth of the sun's energy is greater than the amount of energy the world uses in fossil fuels for a whole year!

What is it used for?

Man has used the sun's energy for thousands of years for light and heat, to dry our clothes. Early farmers used the sun to dry their food to make it last (preserve it). We use solar energy today in the following ways:

	make electricity
	power machines
	heat water in the home
	grow plants/food
	make us healthy
	garden lights
	calculators, torches
	heat swimming pools
	electric fences on farms
	provide electricity in space

Solar energy is collected in 'solar panels'. You may have seen these on the roofs of houses.

Solar farms collect solar energy to make electricity. There are solar farms all over Australia, the largest in the southern hemisphere is at Singleton in NSW.

The cells in solar panels are called 'photovoltaic (PV) and change sunlight into electricity. The most simple of these cells can power a watch or a calculator.

Solar energy is clean and renewable (used over and over).

The disadvantages of solar energy are:

	doesn't work well on cloudy days and not at all during the night.
	solar generators are expensive to run and take up a lot of space.

If you want to find out more about solar energy, here are a couple of links:

http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/solar.htm

http://www.solarenergy.org/resources/youngkids.htm

Bibliography

"Classroom Focus" Issue 8, 2006, Scholastic Australia

"Solar Energy" Kidcyber www.kidcyber.com.au/au/topics/solar.htm , July 09, 2007