Electricity

Who discovered electricity? A wide number of scientist across the world carried out careful studies discovering electricity. Ancient Egyptian’s became aware of the electric shocks from the sea life found in the sea, these were electric fish. They also believed that if you touched an electric fish it can cure your headaches. The English word for Electricity or Electric became published in print in the year 1646 after an English scientist, William Gilbert studied electricity and magnetism around the same year. Benjamin Franklin is one of a handful of scientists who carried out extensive research in electricity during the 18 th century going as far as even selling his belongings to raise funds to survive his in daily life. Although carrying out many experiments with electricity from 1746 he is most famous for his kite experiment in 1752 which proved his theory that lightning is naturally occurring in nature. A simple proof of this is static electricity which we can all produce ourselves.

How does a power station work? Unfortunately although electricity occurs naturally it is also in nature difficult to store in large quantities and the best we have achieved to do this is a battery. Most man made or generated electricity comes from power stations. There are several ways to produce the electricity, for example solar, wind, thermal (including coal, oil and nuclear) and all but solar use the same principle, this being the passing of iron through a magnetic field commonly known as electromagnetic induction. A thermal power station is a power plant which uses high pressure steam as its prime source for turning large fan like impellers which in turn drive large alternators which produces the electricity. The voltage of the electricity produced is in the thousands of volts and is far to high to be used in the home and has to be lowered to a standardised voltage using a series of step down transformers allowing a supply which is normally between 240V – 415V in the UK Some thermal power plants also are designed to use the heat produced during the production of the electricity as a secondary form of heat energy which can be used directly in other industries and domestic purposes for heating in general.

How electricity gets to your home? How do we use electricity in the houses? 1. Power plant3. Electrical transmission2. Distribution system 4. Sub-station5. Distribution Transformer6. Home use