Power Grids
By Jose Reyes
A Power Grid is a system of transporting
and transforming high voltage
electricity, from where it originates (The Power Plant) to the switch which
turns on the light in your home. Electricity must take several steps before it
reaches the homes because when it is created the voltage is too strong. Before
it arrives on your doorstep it must be transformed to a lower and safer voltage,
in order to protect you, "The Customer" from being fatally
electrocuted.
The Path Electricity Takes
Step 1: The Power Plant (See Pictures)
A power plant is the location where electricity is created and its always situated in a very isolated and secure area because of its dangerous environment. The electricity is created by a spinning generator. This generator is propelled in many ways and this is why there are different types of power plants, it depends on the technique used to create the spinning.
Types of Power Plants:
1. Natural Gas Power Plant: Becoming more popular and is cleaner and does not produce Carbon Monoxide.
2. Nuclear Power Plant: Nuclear power creates electricity using the energy released by splitting atoms to boil water and creates steam which turns a steam turbine that spins the generator.
3. Coal-Burning Power Plant: Coal has been used as a source of power since the beginning of the industrial revolution and replaced wood as Europe became deforested and wood became expensive. Example: FirstEnergy Corp., the Ohio Grid in Question.
4. Hydroelectric Power Plant: Hydroelectricity is a renewable source of power generated using the force of falling water to turn a turbine that spins the generator.
5. Diesel or Oil-Burning Power Plant: Oil is a cheap source, but its running out especially for the non-Opec countries.
There are more ways to generate electricity but I will not discuss it here because these forms are not being used or are in there infant development stages. They Are: Biomass, Wind, Geothermal, Fuel Cell, Hydrogen, Solar.
Step 2:
There is a Transmission
Substation
located on the premises, in the Power Plant, that gathers the the extremely High
Voltage electricity, immediately after the generators produces it. The voltage
of the this energy force can range from 155,000 to 765,000.
Step 3: From
the Transmission Substation,
the electricity begins its long journey on High
Voltage Transmission Lines,
that can travel
up to 300
miles.>>
Step 4: When
the powerful,
"High Voltage", electricity
gets to its destination its must be Stepped
down immediately and
that's when it enters the Power
Substation: 
where a heavy duty
transformer along with a switch tower is located, to lower the
voltage down to about 10,000 volts. Here in the power substation the electricity is
dispersed to all different locations throughout the city, town or village.
NOTE: Power
Substation are also located underground,
especially in the big cities. It would be too dangerous to expose these powerful
substations to the public. High voltage transmission lines are also located underground
for the same purpose.
Power substations can also be enclosed in a
protective
building:
Step 5: After
going through the step
down process electricity
enters a distribution bus
which
divides the power into
separate power circuits for different neighborhoods. Can be underground
also.
Step 6: The electricity leaves the distribution bus and is routed throughout the city either on poles or underground. Occasionally the electricity passes through a regulator bank which controls and maintains a correct voltage for distribution.
Step 7: When the electricity gets to your house it is stepped down for a final time by a transformer drum which will bring the voltage down to 220 volts. These drums could be located on the electrical poles or in the home itself.
Conclusion: With this general explanation of how power grids work, I can give the reader an idea of what physically happened on August 14 at 4:09 EST. Remember, the experts narrowed it down to the Ohio Power Grid.
