What is Electricity?

 Where is electricity stored?

The real answer to this question is that electricity is not stored at all. It is generated – that is, made – as it is used. Gas can be stored in huge cylinders. Electricity is produced and used immediately.

Electricity can be produced in several ways – by hydro-electric stations, which use the power of waterfalls and rivers to drive the generators, by thermal power stations, where fuel like coal and oil is used; and by nuclear power stations.

The basic method of production is the same, but the most usual source of electricity if the thermal power station. The fuel is used to heat water in the boilers to produce steam at very high pressure – up to 5,000 pounds a square inch. This steam is directed at the blades of a high-speed turbine which is connected to the generator. The generators are of two-pole construction, turning at 3,000 revolutions a minute.

These generators work on the principle of the rotation of a wire coil through a magnetic field, the application of the earliest principles discovered by pioneer scientists.

To supply this tremendous electrical energy where it is wanted, three components parts are require. First, the generating stations themselves. Second, the transmission system for transmitting large amounts of electricity to whole areas where it is needed. Third, the distribution system for distributing the power at low voltages to homes, shops, and individual consumers.

So electricity is not stored. It is made, and at once used. Great skill has to be employed to keep balance between the supply and the demand.

The current world oil shortage has made the problems of electricity production more difficult especially in Europe and Japan.