⇒ Wind farms require many turbines in exposed areas where there is plenty of wind e.g on the coast or out at sea
⇒ The wind causes the wind turbines's blades to turn, which then turns a generator
⇒ The wind is, of course, renewable and causes no pollution
⇒ The disadvantages of wind energy is that it takes nearly 1500 wind turbines to generate the same amount of power as one coal power station. Others say wind turbines are ugly, make lots of noise, and are expensive to set up.
⇒ The other problem with wind turbines is that if there isn't enough wind then no electricity will be generated
⇒ Solar cells (also known as photocells) can transfer the sun's energy into electricity
⇒ Solar cells tend to be built out of the semi-conductor silicon - when the sun's rays shine on the silicon, atoms within the silicon absorb the energy causing some of the electrons to loosen and flow as a circuit
⇒ The power generated by a solar cell depends on its surface area (the larger the surface area, the more electricity that will be produced) and the intensity of the sun's light onto the solar cell (the more intense the sun's light, the more electricity will be produced)
⇒ Solar cells can be expensive to set up, but after that they are free to generate energy and the running costs are alomst 0 with no pollution too
⇒ Obviously, solar cells are only really useful if there is enough sunligh, which means they aren't particularly useful at night time or, ocassionally, in winter.
⇒ A solar panel is far more basic compared to a solar cell
⇒ Essentially, a solar panel is just black water pipes inside a glass boz
⇒ The energy from the sun is absorbed by the solar paneels, heating up the water inside
⇒ In a solar oven, a curved mirror is used to focus the sun's energy on a pan, which get's hot and can heat your food or drink