What is electricity?

1) Electricity results from the presence and flow of electrical charge.

2) It is a secondary source of energy, meaning that it is produced from coal, oil, nuclear power and other sources of natural energy.

3) To provide us with heat, light and power, electrical energy has to be converted. The energy that comes from electricity, like all forms of energy, can never be destroyed.

4) The generation of electricity began just over 100 years ago.

5) The word electricity is rooted New Latin electricus, "amber-like", the classical Latin electrum, and in the Greek word elektron, meaning amber.

6) The power of electricity wasn't really understood until the 18th century, but its existence was recorded even as far back as the time of the Ancient Egyptians.

7) The first principals of electricity were developed after Benjamin Franklin conducted an experiment in Philadelphia in 1872. He is reputed to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown it in a stormy sky. He observed a succession of sparks from the key to the back of his hand, showing that lightening was electrical in nature.

8) Lighting is one of the biggest uses of domestic energy in the UK, but the light bulb was only invented by Thomas Edison in the late eighteenth century.

9) Indeed, we weren't able to get electricity in our homes until Nikola Tesla pioneered the use of alternating current (AC) electricity, rather than direct current (DC) electricity, which can be transmitted over much greater distances.

10) The Department of Transport and Industry reported that, in 2001, the UK consumed electricity equivalent to over 240 million tonnes of oil, more than it had in the last thirty years!

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