how exactly is electricity created and why are there so many ways to do it (ie hydro, coal, nuclear,etc)

Question

how exactly is electricity created and why are there so many ways to do it (ie hydro, coal, nuclear,etc)

In: 26

Answer 1

All electric power plants except solar involve spinning a really large magnet inside of a stationary coil of wire. The moving magnetic field induces an electric current in the wire, converting the mechanical energy of the spinning magnet into electrical energy.

So you need to get a really large magnet spinning really fast, and there are a bunch of ways to do that. You can make steam and use the steam to spin a turbine. To do that, you can use a fuel to heat the water (coal, natural gas, nuclear). Or you can use already moving water to spin a turbine directly (hydro). Or you can use wind power to spin the alternator (the magnet and coil of wire) directly.

Solar works totally differently, where a solar panel absorbs photons from the sun, and due to complicated semiconductor physics, causes a voltage to form across the panel modules