History of Power production and distribution[edit | edit source]
History Many people knowed about electricity over decades. Benjamin Franklin and his revolutionary kite experiment in the year 1752, showed that we don´t know much about electricity.
For years we enjoy it and find new ways to use and improve our lives with it.
During the 1820s and early 1830s the fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered by the British scientist Michael Faraday.
His method is still used: With the movement of a loop of wire or a disc of copper between the poles of a magnet the electricity is generated or "induced".
The electromagnetic Method has revolutionized the whole world. This process is used in newer power production.
In the year 1879 Thomas Alva Edison invented the classical light bulb. The bulb was useless beacause no one had electricity, so he made the first step. He developed an electric power system which generated and distributed the electricity.
Since 1882 electricity is generated at central stations and the first power plant were run on coal or water in lower Manhattan, in New York City's financial district.
The steam powered generators produced direct current (DC) and distributed to shop owners and many more businesses.
Today we use mainly coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind generators and petroleum and only a small amount of solar energy, tidal power and geothermal sources.
The most electricity is gained by modern coal power plants in the U.S. on lower ranks are:
- Nuclear Electric Power
- Fossil Fuel Petroleum
- Renewable Energy (Wind and conventional Hydroelectric Power
The applications began with a bulb, telegraph and then radio, television and so on.
The produced energy had to be consumed directly, because the storage was very expensive and limited.
Sources:
[1]
Power Production[edit | edit source]
Is nuclear power a solution for the future?
The global energy production reached 10 billion tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) per year. It is largely through the oil, gas and coal, in a very unequal in the world. If rich countries waste, many countries in developing and populous legitimately tend to massively
increase their consumption in the coming decades. Energy scenarios predict a 300% increase in 50 of the world's energy production by 2050. It is already clear that such an increase can not be done on the current model,
based on fossil fuels , whose reserves are limited, and whose use led to massive CO2 emissions responsible
for climate change of great magnitude. The development of new energy sources is now unavoidable,
whatever the efforts that we can do in controlling demand. These alternative sources are well known and relatively well quantified. Nuclear power appears as the only available source quickly scale, but requires significant capital investment and public acceptance. Solar energy is an important source, but its implementation is extremely expensive and complex. However, it is already competitive in areas without electricity networks. Wind energy represents a small deposit and will probably exceed 10% of electricity production and still intermittently and randomly. Biomass is an interesting approach, but difficult to develop large scale. Other sources (geothermal, waves, tides, ??) seem unable to meet strong demand. The energy storage (hydrogen in particular) is far from being under control. It represents a major technological challenge, and could make the most interesting intermittent energy sources in the future. Finally, thermonuclear fusion represents a massive source, but may not be available before the end of the century. If the development of nuclear power in the world is probably the quickest way to fight against the greenhouse effect, it will by no means sufficient. The energy and climate challenge we face, requires the establishment of the capture of CO2 from power plants using fossil fuels and sustained development of renewable energy. Alternatives to fossil fuels have their own drawbacks, but it is not clear that we still have a choice.
Headline text[edit | edit source]
Power production means to generate electric power from other sources of primary energy.
Generation methods There are different methods used to generate electricity.
Photovoltaic panels
Now a day, you can find photovoltaic panels on every third roof. Photovoltaic panels convert sunlight directly to electricity. Sun is free, but solar energy is more expensive to produce than mechanically generated power.
Turbines
They are driven by steam. For the steam the water is heathen by different sources. But some types are also driven by wind or falling water. Some sources are:
- nuclear fission - burning of fossil fuels
some reneable sources:
- solar thermal energy - geothermal power
other generation methods:
There are more technologies for generating energy than so far described. In particular interest in portable application is the solid-state generation. This area is largely dominated by thermoelectric (TE) devices, though thermionic (TI) and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems have been developed as well.
Electrical power plants
Most electrical power is produced at fossil fuel plants, hydroelectric plants or nuclear fission plants. Fossil fuel and nuclear fission plants have steam turbines to deliver the mechanical energy needed to rotate the large alternators that produce electrical power. Fossil plants produce the steam by using energy to heat the water. The steam then gets through the pipes in a turbine. In a nuclear plant, uranium atoms are split apart to create a heat that. In general nuclear systems have similar costs when compared with fossil fuel generation systems. Coal and other fossil fuels dominate world-wide power supply due to their cost-effective usage in industrialised countries and developing countries. Though a high standard of fossil fuel conversion techniques has been achieved up to now, further improvement of classical processes is possible. Emission abatement through efficiency improvement at coal fuelled power plant is comparably cheap and therefore has great effects on fuel consumption and environmental impacts. Hydroelectric plants use vertical hydraulic turbines. These components convert the force of flowing water into mechanical energy to rotate the alternators. Hydroelectric power is the only renewable sources providing sufficient energy density and availability to generate power at attractive costs. In fact that water is a renewable energy the plants do not produce green house gases like the fossil foul and nuclear plants. Oncei n place the hydro electrical plants do not waste byproducts. All power plants are built near cities and industrial location where a large amount of electricity is needed.
Power Distribution[edit | edit source]
First of all the electric power is produced in a powerplant by a generator. The powerplant has its own transformer which creats a voltage level about 25kV.
If the power is produced by a renewabel source a group of power sources are combined to one station whith only one transformer for the 25kV level.
The next step is to higher the voltage to different level for the overhead transmission lines, which is done by a second transformer outside the powerplant.
At some point the overhead transmission line branches to a line for industiral uses and a line for normal user. The industrial line is transformed back to 33kV which is directly used by the industry.
The other line transport the power to a simular tranformer which creats also a voltage level from 33kV which is lowerd even more by a second tanformer to 11KV.
It depends on the distance between the industy and the household if they share a tranformer for the 33kV or different transformers are used.
After this the power arravis at local substaion which generate the normal 400V which every normal houshold uses.
Sources: [2]
