Teenager eyes energy revolution

Have you heard about the "energy crisis" in Europe? Prices of gas and electricity have gone up and some of us might find that our town has to cut off the electricity from time to time this winter because energy supplies are short. Sparsh Nihav knows this problem well. He lives in Patna, a city in India. "In my hometown," he tells WoW! News, "I had electricity shortages and blackouts. It’s been affecting me personally and I wanted to solve this problem."

Sparsh has discovered a possible solution that could let people generate lots of clean electricity without spending too much. That's why he's just become this year's winner of the prestigious Children's Climate Prize. His idea is a device that turn's the Sun's energy into power. Now, you might think that's not very original. We're used to seeing more and more of those solar panels, which turn sunlight into electricity.

But Sparsh saw there's a problem with those: "I’m from a lower-income background, so solar panels and stuff like that is really expensive," he says. "So I started researching for a solution on the internet and I found out that …. no one has tried to use the heat of the Sun." That's how he came up with a way to turn the Sun's heat, instead of its light, into electricity.

You can see how he's done that in the WoW! News app.