ELECTRICITY ARTICLE
What is ELECTRICITY and where does it come from?
Let us keep it simple. All homes
in the United States have 120/240 volt system.
The service size in 98% of the homes is 60 amps, 100 amps, or 200 amp
single phase 60 cycles. How does electric
work in the home? All one must do is
flip a switch to find out the answer. Today’s
modern home uses all of the power of electric to: Heat, Light, Clean, Cool, and
of course powers our games and entertainment. A hundred years ago a family was
happy to have light after dark. Today’s
family is very upset if they lose power for an hour of one day.
Power if
produced at the powerhouse by the use of a generator which is turned by steam, nuclear,
or coal. There are also other generators but let us
keep it simple. All power companies
generate at 13,200 volts. All power
companies TRANSFORM (remember this
term) this voltage to 34,500 volts,
69,000 volts, 138,000 volts, or the big daddy 345,000 volts. Why do we want higher voltages? The formula is volts times amps equals
watts. The higher the voltage there is
the less drag or resistance to flow in the wires.
Every step
requires a transformer to step it down or step it up. Take any one of
the transformers out of the line and you have no power to your home. Sandy in 2012 took out 8 million customers on
the East Coast. It took three weeks to
get some of those customers back in power.
Three weeks without power is a long time. What would you think of 18 months without
power? Most of the transformers in the line to your home take 18 months to
REPAIR.
Just think
about how you and your loved ones would cope with being out of power for a year
and a half. Where are you going to go???
