I know it’s sometimes made via kinetic energy rotating magnets but that might be to complicated an explanation. Trying to figure out an easy way to explain the generation part to some kids!
In: Technology
Electricity is moving electrons in a wire.
There are many ways to generate electricity. All of them, simply put, push electrons. Moving a magnet near a wire pushes the electrons in the wire. Doing so quickly, over and over again, is more or less how our power plants make electricity.
Solar panels use very thin layers of materials, arranged in just the right way to allow electrons to get knocked between layers by light. This causes light to knock electrons from one layer to another, moving them.
Certain chemical reactions can carry electrons from one wire to another. This is how batteries work.
The original electrical generators would physically move electrons. For instance, the van de graaf generator (google it – you’ve seen one) uses a conveyor belt to physically pull electrons from one wire to the other.
There are some less common ways of making electricity, but these are the two biggest ones.
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