Electricity generation explained

Although humans have been aware of electricity in one form or another for thousands of years, it has only been in the last two hundred that we have been able to harness it safely and generate a steady current of it for use in electrical appliances.

Instead, this type of electricity has to be generated using a primary energy source such as fossil fuels, nuclear fission, or wind power to provide sufficient kinetic energy to drive an electricity generator. Thus, electricity is usually referred to as being a secondary energy source.

Before the advent of electricity generation in the late 1800s, the lighting, heating, and refrigeration needs of the typical household were met by using gas lamps, coal or wood-burning stoves, and ice-boxes. Although humans had been aware of the existence of electricity for thousands of years, it was not until the 1800s that practical ways were found to generate it and use it.

These were not nearly as controllable or convenient as their electrical equivalents and soon died a death once these came on the scene. However, these required a constant supply of energy, which necessitated the construction of several large power plants.

Although there are now a number of high tech ways in which primary energy sources can be used to create electricity, such as the photovoltaic cell, the traditional method, which is still the most common, is to use a generator. A generator works on the principle, discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831, that electrical currents can be induced in a coil of wire when a magnet is turned inside it.

It was not until the far more powerful electromagnet came on the scene later in the 19th century that large scale electrical generation based upon this principle could become a workable reality.

The generators used in modern power stations utilise a huge electromagnet rotating inside a series of insulated coils, inducing a current in each one, which is then summed into a far larger current when those coils are joined at the end of the circuit.

These giant electromagnets are not going to rotate themselves, however, and require the energy for movement to come from a secondary source such as a steam turbine or a windmill. Typically, a power plant can achieve an energy efficiency of around 35%, meaning that only just over a third of the energy used to create the electricity is actually turned into electrical energy.

The majority of power stations use turbines, which are essentially large water wheels that are propelled by jets of steam produced by heating water with coal, gas, petrol, or nuclear power

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