What are the primary sources of electricity? - FactzPedia

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What are the primary sources of electricity?

 

What are the primary sources of electricity?


Electricity takes on many different forms.

This is because converting a primary source into a secondary energy source produces the electricity we use.

Primary energy sources are either renewable or nonrenewable energy.

Coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy are nonrenewable energy sources, while solar, wind, and hydroelectric are examples of renewable energy.

Electricity in the United States often travels long distances from generating facilities to local distribution substations through a transmission grid of nearly 160,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Generating facilities provide power to the grid at low voltage, from 480 volts (V) in small generating facilities to 22 kilovolts (kV) in larger power plants. Once electricity leaves a generating facility, the voltage is increased, or "stepped up," by a transformer (typical ranges of 100 kV to 1,000 kV) to minimize the power losses over long distances. As electricity is transmitted through the grid and arrives in the load areas, the voltage is stepped down by substation transformers (ranges of 70 kV to 4 kV). To prepare for customer interconnection, the voltage is lowered again (residential customers use 120/240 V; commercial and industrial customers typically use 208/120 V, or 480/277 V).

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