How do turbines/generators turn rotational force into electricity?

Question

What is actually happening inside the generator, and where is it drawing the electrons that make up the current from?

In: 6

Answer 1

If you take a large coil of wire, and you place it around a spinning magnet, the electrons in the wire get attracted to the magnet. Since the magnet is spinning, the place where the electrons are attracted to keeps moving, so the electrons move back and forth in the wire. The electrons moving back and forth creates what is called “alternating current.”

So to create electricity from rotation, you need to have a coil of wire and a magnet. And you use whatever rotational force you have (steam turbine, windmill, water turbine) to make the magnet turn.