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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Electric_power
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Itaipu Dam is a hydroelectric generating station on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. Electricity generation is the first process in the delivery of electricity to consumers. The other processes are electric power transmission and electricity distribution
The demand for electricity can be met in two different ways. The primary method thus far has been for public or private utilities to construct large scale centralized projects to generate and transmit the electricity required to fuel economies. Many of these projects have unpleasant environmental effects such as air or radiation pollution and the flooding of large areas of land.
Distributed generation creates power on a smaller scale at locations throughout the electricity network. Often these sites generate electricity as a byproduct of other industrial processes such as using gas from landfills to drive turbines
Rotating turbines attached to electrical generators produce most commercially available electricity. Turbines may be driven by using steam, water, wind or other fluids as an intermediate energy carrier. The most common usage is by steam in fossil fuel power plants or nuclear power plants, and by water in hydroelectric dams. Alternately, turbines can be driven directly by the combustion of natural gas or oil. Combined cycle gas turbine plants offer efficiencies of up to 60%. They generate power by burning natural gas in a gas turbine and use residual heat to generate additional electricity from steam. Wind turbines generate electricity by using the wind. Solar chimneys use wind that is artificially produced inside the chimney by heating it with sunlight. Solar parabolic troughs and solar power towers concentrate sunlight to heat a heat transfer fluid that is used to produce steam to turn a turbine. Small electricity generators are often powered by reciprocating engines burning diesel, biogas or natural gas. Diesel engines are often used for back up generation, usually at low voltages. Biogas is often combusted where it is produced, such as a landfill or wastewater treatment plant, with a reciprocating engine or a microturbine, which is a small gas turbine
Although electricity had been known to be produced as a result of the chemical reactions that take place in an electrolytic cell since Alessandro Volta developed the voltaic pile in 1800, its production by this means was, and still is, expensive. In 1831, Michael Faraday devised a machine that generated electricity from rotary motion, but it took almost 50 years for the technology to reach a commercially viable stage. In 1878, Thomas Edison developed and sold a commercially viable replacement for gas lighting and heating using locally generated and distributed direct current electricity. The reason generation close to or on the consumer's premises was necessary was that Edison had no means of voltage conversion. The voltage chosen for any electrical system is a compromise. Increasing the voltage reduces the current and therefore reduces resistive losses in the cable. Unfortunately it increases the danger from direct contact and also increases the required insulation thickness. Furthermore some load types were difficult or impossible to make for higher voltages.
Nikola Tesla, who had worked for Edison for a short time and appreciated the electrical theory in a way that Edison did not, devised an alternative system using alternating current. Tesla realised that while doubling the voltage would halve the current and reduce losses by three-quarters, only an alternating current system allowed the transformation between voltage levels in different parts of the system. This allowed efficient high voltages for distribution where their risks could easily be mitigated by good design while still allowing fairly safe voltages to be supplied to the loads. He went on to develop the overall theory of his system, devising theoretical and practical alternatives for all of the direct current appliances then in use, and patented his novel ideas in 1887, in thirty separate patents.
Nikola Tesla's generation system using AC circuits to transport energy across great distances.
The importance of dependable electricity generation, transmission and distribution was revealed when it became apparent that electricity was useful for providing heat, light and power for human activities. Centralised power generation became possible when it was recognised that alternating current electric power lines can transport electricity at low costs across great distances by taking advantage of the ability to transform the voltage using power transformers.
Electricity has been generated for the purpose of powering human technologies for at least 120 years from various sources of potential energy. The first power plants were run on wood, while today we rely mainly on petroleum, natural gas, coal, hydroelectric and nuclear power and a small amount from hydrogen, solar energy, tidal harnesses, wind generators, and geothermal sources.
Electricity demand
Methods of generating electricity.
Methods for transforming other power into electrical power
Electrical power industry
Transmission lines in Lund, Sweden
"Electric company" redirects here. There was also a 1970s children's television show, The Electric Company.
Electric power, often known as power or electricity, involves the production and delivery of electrical energy through in sufficient quantities to areas that need electricity. Many households and businesses need access to electricity, especially in developed nations, the demand being scarcer in developing nations. Demand for electricity is derived from the requirement for electricity in order to operate domestic appliances, office equipment, industrial machinery and provide sufficient energy for both domestic and commercial lighting, heating, cooking and industrial processes. Because of this aspect of the industry, it is viewed as a public utility as infrastructure.
Components of the electrical power industry are split up into four processes. These are electricity generation such as the use of a power station, electric power transmission, electricity distribution and electricity retailing. In many countries, electric power companies own the whole infrastructure from generating stations to transmission and distribution infrastructure. For this reason, electric power is viewed as a natural monopoly. The industry is generally heavily regulated, often with price controls and is frequently government-owned and operated. The nature and state of market reform of the electricity market often determines whether electric companies are able to be involved in just some of these processes without having to own the entire infrastructure, or citizens choose which components of infrastructure to patronise. In countries where electricity provision is deregulated, end-users of electricity may opt for more costly green electricity.
All forms of electricity generation have positive and negative aspects. Technology will probably eventually declare the most preferred form, but in a market economy, the option with less overall costs generally will be chosen above other sources. It is not clear yet which form can best meet the necessary energy demands or which process can best solve the demand for electricity. There are indications that renewable energy and distributed generation are becoming more viable in economic terms.
In some markets in the United States, wind power costs less to construct than alternatives such as new fossil fuel power plants. Additionally, wind power, like other clean energy resources such as solar power, does not have costs due to the need to continuously purchase new fuel and therefore, no fluctuating or rising costs to consumers. Clean energy is cited by national security advisors as one solution to United States' dependence on foreign sources of energy, especially on the OPEC Cartel.
History
In 1888, Tesla's work came to the attention of George Westinghouse, who owned a patent for a type of transformer that could deal with high power and was easy to make. Westinghouse had been operating an alternating current lighting plant in Great Barrington, Massachusetts since 1886. While Westinghouse's system could use Edison's lights and had heaters, it did not have a motor. With Tesla and his patents, Westinghouse built a power system for a gold mine in Telluride, Colorado in 1891, with a water driven 100 horsepower (75 kW) generator powering a 100 horsepower (75 kW) motor over a 2.5-mile (4 km) power line. Almarian Decker finally invented the whole system of three-phase power generating in Redlands, California in 1893. Then, in a deal with General Electric, which Edison had been forced to sell, Westinghouse's company went on to construct a power station at the Niagara Falls, with three 5,000 horsepower (3.7 MW) Tesla generators supplying electricity to an aluminium smelter at Niagara and the town of Buffalo 22 miles (35 km) away. The Niagara power station commenced operation on April 20, 1895.
Tesla's alternating current system remains the primary means of delivering electrical energy to consumers throughout the world. While high-voltage direct current (HVDC) is increasingly being used to transmit large quantities of electricity over long distances, the bulk of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailing takes place using alternating current.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Electric_power