How Electricity gets to your Home?
This is a simple school project model aimed to educate the kids about how we get electricity. Electricity is generated by a generator which converts the energy obtained from several sources like Coal/oil/gas, Wind, Water, Nuclear, Solar etc. into electrical energy. For this model, only Coal Power Station is shown so we are not going into the details of other power stations. Hence it is important to know about the processes that takes place in a coal power station. (This model doesn’t include all these details that takes place inside a coal power station!)
In a coal power station, as a first step, the coal is ground to a fine powder and it is passed down to a boiler where it is burned. This burning of coal generates a lot of heat energy and thus converting its chemical energy into heat energy. This heat generated boils the water which circulates in pipes around the boiler, which in turn produces high pressure steam.
This steam is used to rotate the blades of a steam turbine which in turn is connected to a shaft of a generator. So when the turbine rotates, the generator also rotates at a high speed. This generator is nothing but a coils of copper wires(electrical conductors) tightly wound around a metal core which is mounted to spin inside an array of large magnets. This spinning movement of these electrical conductors inside a magnetic field presents a strong electromagnetic field. This huge electromagnetic field converts this mechanical energy resulting from the turbine into Electricity.
The generated Electricity in the Power Station travels along cables to the nearby Sub-Station transmission lines where a transformer converts the electricity in to high voltage so that it can be carried over long distances through overhead power lines or underground cables. Another Transformer on a power pole transforms this high voltage into a lower voltage, so that it can be used safely by nearby house or business.
Note: It is very dangerous to go near any of the power related objects. So don’t go near any power lines or power poles.
Power Project Model and it’s different parts are shown in the images below.
