PUFF THE WEATHER CLOUD SAYS:Let me check the sky… ☁️
🎬 How Sunlight Becomes Electricity tap Next!
Sunlight lands on the panel
Solar panels are dark, flat and shiny, so they soak up lots of sunlight. They're made of special material that loves light. ☀️
🏠 Power the House! play
Pick the weather. How much can the solar panels power?
🌦️ How Weather Changes Solar Power
Clouds
Clouds block some sunlight, so panels make less power. They still work on cloudy days, just not as much.
Snow
Snow covering the panels blocks the light. Panels are slippery and tilted, so the snow usually slides off when the sun comes out.
Heat
Surprise! Panels like sunny days but not too much heat. Super hot panels make a little less power than cool, sunny ones.
Seasons
Summer days are long with the sun high up, so panels make more. Winter days are short with the sun low in the sky, so they make less.
🧪 Try It at Home with a grown-up
Solar calculator
Find a calculator with a little dark strip on top: that's a solar panel! Cover it with your finger in dim light. Does the screen fade?
Dark vs. light
Put a black paper and a white paper in the sun for 15 minutes. Touch them. The dark one gets warmer because it soaks up more sunlight, just like a solar panel.
Safety first
Never look straight at the sun, not even for a second, and not through sunglasses. It can hurt your eyes.
🤩 Wow Facts
The sunlight that reaches Earth in about an hour and a half carries as much energy as all the people in the world use in a whole year!
The International Space Station gets all its electricity from giant solar panel wings that always face the sun.
Solar panels still work on cloudy days, because some sunlight always sneaks through the clouds.