There are many power stations across the globe, supplying billions of kilowatts of electrical power to all our homes, every single day. A large power station will produce enough electricity for a city or about a million kilowatts every hour of the day. The majority of power stations in the world use fossil fuels like crude oil, coal and natural gas. There are other types of power stations that use alternative energy sources like nuclear power. There are also smaller generating stations that use renewable energy, for example solar and wind.
Combusting fossil fuels like coal and natural gas produces heat energy which is used to produce super
hot steam (1). The steam drives turbines (2) which are made from huge magnets surrounded by a copper
coil (3). The movement of the copper coil across a magnetic field induces a current flow in the copper wire.
Electrical energy cannot be stored and is delivered instantly, by the National Grid using a network of
overhead wires and underground cables (4), clean and efficiently to every home.
Power stations are usually found away from large cities. The energy they produce needs to be transported
over large areas. A network (national grid) of cables, pylons, substations and transformers supply all the cities.
Electrical energy is transported from the producer to the user at very high voltage and low current.
This reduces the energy lost to heat due to the wire’s resistance, therefore saving energy, fossil fuels and money.
Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal
heat. While most renewable energy projects and production is large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited
to small off-grid applications, sometimes in rural and remote areas, where energy is often crucial in human development.
Kenya has the world's highest household solar ownership rate with roughly 30,000 small (20–100 watt) solar power
systems sold per year.
In reality, wind energy is a converted form of solar energy. The sun's radiation heats different parts of the earth at
different rates, most notably during the day and night, but also when different surfaces (for example, water and land)
absorb or reflect at different rates. This in turn causes portions of the atmosphere to warm differently. Hot air rises,
reducing the atmospheric pressure at the earth's surface, and cooler air is drawn in to replace it. The result is wind.
Air has mass, and when it is in motion, it contains the energy of that motion (kinetic energy). Some portion of that
energy can converted into other forms mechanical force or electricity that we can use to perform work.
The wind turns the turbine, that has magnets and copper wiring, which produces electricity, in the exact same way
as the traditional power stations.
What’s a watt?
It’s as easy as making a Cup of Tea
