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HOW ELECTRICITY GETS TO YOUR HOME
How It Works UK
|Issue 203
From power plant to plug socket, follow the journey electricity takes before it reaches our homes
In the UK, the average household uses around 2,700 kilowatt-hours of power each year. The majority of power stations produce electricity through a principle called electromagnetic induction. First demonstrated by Michael Faraday in 1831, electromagnetic induction uses a moving magnet and a conductor, such as copper wire, to induce an electrical charge. This works because when the magnet moves around inside the coil, it generates a ‘potential difference’, otherwise known as a voltage, between the ends of the coil along with the current. Voltage can be thought of as the electrical pressure that drives the flow of electrical charges, whereas ‘current’ is the actual rate of flow of that charge. The longer the coil, the larger the magnetic field and the faster the magnet moves, which in turn increases the size of the voltage created, and therefore the greater the current flow.
This story is from the Issue 203 edition of How It Works UK.
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