POWER SISTERS
Bertie Bag

We've used the Sun for drying clothes and food for thousands of years, but only recently have we been able to use it for generating power.

The Sun is 150 million kilometres away, and amazingly powerful.

Just a tiny fraction of the Sun's energy hits the Earth and is enough to meet all our power needs many times over.

In fact, every minute, enough energy arrives at the Earth to meet our demands for a whole year - if only we could harness it properly.

Solar Cells (really called "photovoltaic" or "photoelectric" cells) that convert light directly into electricity.

In a sunny climate, you can get enough power to run a 100W light bulb from just one square metre of solar panel

Solar water heating, where heat from the Sun is used to heat water in glass panels on your roof.

This means you don't need to use so much gas or electricity to heat your water at home.

Solar Furnaces use a huge array of mirrors to concentrate the Sun's energy into a small space and produce very high temperatures.

It can achieve temperatures up to 33,000 degrees Celsius.
Bertie Bag

We've used the wind as an energy source for a long time. The Babylonians and Chinese were using wind power to pump water for irrigating crops 4,000 years ago, and sailing boats were around long before that.

Wind power was used in the Middle Ages, in Europe, to grind corn, which is where the term "windmill" comes from.
 

The Sun heats our atmosphere unevenly, so some patches become warmer than others.

These warm patches of air rise, other air blows in to replace them - and we feel a wind blowing.

We can use the energy in the wind by building a tall tower, with a large propeller on the top
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THE SISTERS ARE POWERING UP FOR THE FUTURE





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