3. COAL PLANTS
Coal Plants produce
44% of our electricity.
A typical (500
megawatt) coal
plant burns 1.4 million
tons of coal each
year. As of 2012,
there are 572
operational coal
plants in the U.S. with
an average capacity
of 547 megawatts.
4. Hydroelectricity is the
term referring to
electricity generated
by hydropower; the
production of electrical
power through the use
of the gravitational
force of falling or
flowing water. It is the
most widely used form
of renewable energy,
accounting for 16
percent of global
electricity generation –
3,427 terawatt-hours of
electricity production in
2010, and is expected
to increase about 3.1%
each year for the next
25 years.
5. A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy
from the wind into electrical power. A wind turbine
used for charging batteries may be referred to as a
wind charger.
The result of over a millennium of windmill
development and modern engineering, today's wind
turbines are manufactured in a wide range of vertical
and horizontal axis types. The smallest turbines are
used for applications such as battery charging for
auxiliary power for boats or caravans or to power
traffic warning signs. Slightly larger turbines can be
used for making small contributions to a domestic
power supply while selling unused power back to the
utility supplier via the electrical grid. Arrays of large
turbines, known as wind farms, are becoming an
increasingly important source of renewable energy
and are used by many countries as part of a strategy
to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.
6. Solar power is the conversion of
sunlight into electricity, either
directly using photovoltaics
(PV), or indirectly using
concentrated solar power
(CSP). Concentrated solar
power systems use lenses or
mirrors and tracking systems to
focus a large area of sunlight
into a small beam.
Photovoltaics convert light into
electric current using the
photovoltaic effect. The PV
industry is beginning to adopt
levelized cost of energy (LCOE)
as the unit of cost. For a 10 MW
plant in Phoenix, AZ, the LCOE
7. HOW DOES IT GET TO OUR
HOMES?
• ELECTRICITY IS TRANSPORTED TO A DISTRIBUTION
CENTER
