How Electricity is Made
Electricity is produced when the balance between the protons and electrons of an atom is disrupted by a certain force. It transmits an electrical charge through solid matter.
Electrical energy is produced by converting other forms of energy. Examples would be chemical energy, gravitational potential energy or heat energy. Heat energy is used by rotating machines such as generators. These generators create a relative motion between a magnetic field and a conductor.
Michael Faraday is a British chemist and physicist. He made a brilliant discovery in the early 1800’s. He discovered that when a magnet is moved through a loop of wire it would become electrically charged. This was the birth of ‘electromagnetic induction.’
Thomas Edison used the same principles Faraday discovered. He opened the first full-scale power plant in New York City in 1882. He used a big magnet rotating around a wire to produce electric current.
Electricity can either be made using water, wind, the sun, and sometimes even animal manure among others. Producing electricity still currently captures the same process.
The most common way to produce electricity is to convert thermal energy to electrical energy. Another way would be to burn different fuels. One example would be coal.
This is used to power either large steam turbines or gas turbines. It can produce continuous electrical charges ready for distribution. There are also power plants that use energy from the waves or tidal motion, the energy of falling water, wind, sunlight or solar energy among others.
Hydroelectricity is produced by holding a massive reservoir of water. Examples would be a dam or natural falls. They release it to run one or more water turbines. This will generate electricity.
Solar energy can also be converted to electrical energy. This is done by solar photovoltaic power plants. Solar power plants use hundreds or thousands of mirrors to direct the sunlight to machines. They use this instead of rotating machines to convert energies. It is also an effective method that powers their generators.
Wind energy is converted to electricity by using grid-connected wind turbines. These are used in areas with strong and steady winds. The wind turbines used carry the same design as the classic Dutch six-bladed wind mills. These wind mills were used in ancient times.