Electrical

Generation and transmission

Electrical power is usually generated by electro-mechanical generators. These can be driven by steam produced from fossil fuel combustion or the heat released from nuclear reactions, but also more directly from the kinetic energy of wind or flowing water. The steam turbine invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884 is still used to convert the thermal energy of steam into a rotary motion that can be used by electro-mechanical generators. Such generators bear no resemblance to Faraday's homopolar disc generator of 1831, but they still rely on his electromagnetic principle that a conductor linking a changing magnetic field induces a potential difference across its ends. Electricity generated by solar panels rely on a different mechanism: solar radiation is converted directly into electricity using the photovoltaic effect.