One way to gather energy is via wind power, which is used to power wind turbines. There is a difference between windmills and wind turbines, as windmills are commonly used in the Netherlands for grinding grains like wheat, hence the name.
Wind turbines are placed in places with strong winds, often used in 'wind farms'. Generators turn the kinetic energy of the rotating blades into electrical energy.
Solar is gathered by solar panels, which are sheets of metal with solar cells, the the technical term is a photovoltaic cell.
Often used in watches and calculators since they don't need that much power.
These solar panels are placed in large plots of land, directly in sunlight to gather as much solar power as possible. But since we have lots of plots of land, solar power is becoming more popular, especially in cities with roofs as the roofs of houses or shade can be topped with solar panels to help make passive electricity.
But solar and wind power have pros and cons, as wind power needs.. Strong winds, while the solar needs the sun, so if it is not a windy day at the wind farm,
it won't produce much power, same with the solar panels if the sky is cloudy the electricity gathered by the cells would be lacklustre compared to a day where the sun is blistering hot.
A pro to this is that it doesn't make carbon dioxide to generate electricity, compared to fossil fuels or coal, but the upfront cost or the price of setting these alternative power sources is high, along with the fact that making these often makes solutions like carbon dioxide, they also take lots of space and you can't really increase the amount of power if the dammand gets higher.