Energy & Green Tech

Doing the math on a solar-powered future

Physicist Anders Carlsson, at Washington University in St. Louis, and Sid Redner of the Santa Fe Institute have created a new mathematical model to describe the most reliable, efficient and cost-effective way to harness solar ...

Energy & Green Tech

Are microgrids a key to grid resiliency?

The aging energy grid is being pushed to the breaking point. Power outages from extreme weather alone cost anywhere from $2 billion to $77 billion per year. And some isolated communities still rely on diesel generators for ...

Energy & Green Tech

Diversity can prevent failures in large power grids

The recent power outages in Texas brought attention to its power grid being separated from the rest of the country. While it is not immediately clear whether integration with other parts of the national grid would have completely ...

Energy & Green Tech

Tuning thermoelectric materials for efficient power generation

In times when energy is scarce and sustainable ways of energy production are being explored, thermoelectric materials are being considered for power generation to transform waste heat into electricity. However, to make this ...

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Electricity generation

Electricity generation is the process of creating electricity from other forms of energy.

The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820's and early 1830's by the British scientist Michael Faraday. His basic method is still used today: electricity is generated by the movement of a loop of wire, or disc of copper between the poles of a magnet.

For electric utilities, it is the first process in the delivery of electricity to consumers. The other processes, electric power transmission, electricity distribution, and electrical power storage and recovery using pumped storage methods are normally carried out by the electrical power industry.

Electricity is most often generated at a power station by electromechanical generators, primarily driven by heat engines fueled by chemical combustion or nuclear fission but also by other means such as the kinetic energy of flowing water and wind. There are many other technologies that can be and are used to generate electricity such as solar photovoltaics and geothermal power.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA