For the home builder of a renewable energy system, it really isn’t necessary to understand the physical intricacies of electricity- but it is pretty fun, particularly if you are putting up solar panels- which are a totally different form of energy capture than other forms of energy.

By the law of conservation of energy, energy can never be destroyed. Nor can it be created. So what any kind of electrical plant is about is taking one form of energy and making it another form. Creating electricity is really about converting energy, not making electricity out of nothing.

Thinking way back to those high school physics courses that we may have all tried to repress, there are a variety of forms of energy, and most can be converted into electricity. For example, a battery or a fuel cell converts chemical energy into electrical energy and most forms of power plants convert kinetic energy (motion) into electrical energy.

At the  base of most electrical systems in a very simple and old technology- the electric turbine. It’s a very simple concept. In every turbine, there is a stationary piece and a moving piece. One of those pieces is magnetic and the other is a set of, usually copper, coils. The coils move within the magnetic field, picking up electrons along the way. Voi la! You have electricity.

Obviously, this is a very simple version of power generation, but it’s interesting to understand this for a couple of reasons. Specifically, understanding that power generation is generally based on the same technologies.