You are on page 1of 2

Circuitos Elctricos II

Jess Antonio Baez


Francisco Javier Rincn Aguilar
A00516087
14/08/2014

Have you ever think how could it be living without light?


Every people in the world use light all the days, but only a few persons know from
where does the light come, or how it is produced. All the electrical power starts at the
power plant, the power plant consists of a spinning electrical generator. The power
plant produces three different phases of AC power simultaneously: 1-phase and 2phase power, there are 120 moments per second when a sine wave is crossing zero
volts, In 3-phase power, at any given moment one of the three phases is nearing a
peak. High-power 3-phase motors and things like 3-phase welding equipment therefore
have even power output. Four phases would not significantly improve things but would
add a fourth wire, so 3-phase is the natural settling point.
The three phase leaves the generator and enter on a transmission substation at the
power plant. The transmission substation takes the electricity from power plants and
from the transmission lines and transform it from high to lower voltage. This substation
uses large transformers to convert the generator's voltage
Typical voltages for long distance transmission are in the range of 155,000 to 765,000
volts in order to reduce line losses. A typical maximum transmission distance is about
300 miles (483 km). When you are going on the road you will find regulator banks
located along the line, either underground or in the air. They regulate the voltage on the
line to prevent under voltage and overvoltage conditions.
Generally you use on your house electrical service as single-phase 120-voly AC
service. When the rate of oscillation for the sine wave is of 60 cycles per second is
referred to alternative current (AC), another type of electricity is the direct current (DC).
But AC has some advantages over the DC power distribution, some of them are:
1. Large electrical generators happen to generate AC naturally, so conversion to DC would
involve an extra step.
2. Transformers must have alternating current to operate, and we will see that the power
distribution grid depends on transformers.
3. It is easy to convert AC to DC but expensive to convert DC to AC, so if you were going
to pick one or the other AC would be the better choice.

The Direct current was invented by Thomas Edison, at the end of the 19 th century a
wider of electricity began, so they started to appear some problems about the electric
lines of the length of only a kilometer, drops in voltage were too great, there were great
losses during the transport of electric current. Then it was not possible with one electric
line to bring different voltages to the users who requested such service. Two opposing
solutions appeared. On one side there were supporters of the continued usage of direct
current, Thomas Edison being one of them. Their solution anticipated placing
production near the users, so that long lines would not have to be used. The second
group of engineers and businessmen, including Nikola Tesla, had a different opinion.
They deemed necessary the introduction of an entirely new system of production,
transport and distribution of electric energy. The system they supported was based on
Teslas multi-phase system of alternating current. The conflict made rivals out of two
collaborators Tesla and Edison.

Bibliography:

LLC. (n.d.). science. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved August 13, 2014, from


http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/power12.htm
B92. (n.d.). Tesla - Life and work - War of the Currents. Tesla - Life and work - War of the Currents.
Retrieved August 13, 2014, from http://www.b92.net/eng/special/tesla/life.php?nav_id=36440
Electric Transmission Planning in the State of Minnesota. (n.d.). Electric Transmission Planning in the
State of Minnesota. Retrieved August 12, 2014, from http://www.minnelectrans.com/transmissionsystem.html
Corp. (n.d.). How Electricity Works. How Electricity Works. Retrieved August 12, 2014, from
https://www.pacificpower.net/ed/se/hew.ht

You might also like