Power and Energy Engineering

Electricity is generated at power plants. It moves through a complex system, called the grid, of electricity substations, transformers, and power lines that connect electricity producers and consumers. Most of the local grids are interconnected for reliability and commercial purposes, forming larger, more dependable networks that enhance the coordination and planning of electricity supply. Generation, delivery and utilization of electric energy and power is still one of the most exciting and challenging fields of electrical engineering. Amazing technological developments of our age are highly dependent upon a reliable, safe and economic supply of electrical energy. Power is passed over a transmission network of high voltage lines. Generally, these lines run into hundreds of kilometres and deliver the power into a common power pool called the grid. Grid is connected to load centres over a sub-transmission network lines.

Atoms are the fundamental constituents of everything around us. Nuclear science is crucial to understanding our universe. If we can understand how atoms come together, interact, and can be best combined with other atoms, then new, more efficient materials and medicines can be developed. Today most people are aware of the important contribution nuclear energy makes in providing a significant proportion of clean electricity. The ultimate source of most terrestrial energy is nuclear, either through radiation from the Sun caused by stellar thermonuclear reactions or by radioactive decay of uranium within the Earth, the principal source of geothermal energy. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, and their use and control has been a major aspect of international policy since their debut. Nuclear power is a type of nuclear technology involving the controlled use of nuclear fission to release energy for work including propulsion, heat, and the generation of electricity. Nuclear energy is produced by a controlled nuclear chain reaction which creates heat and which is used to boil water, produce steam, and drive a steam turbine. The turbine is used to generate electricity and/or to do mechanical work.

In economic terms, electricity is a product which is capable of being sold, bought and traded. An electricity market is a system enabling through bids to buy, through offers to sell, purchases, sales, and short-term trades, generally in the form of financial or obligation swaps. Offers and offers utilize free market activity standards to set the cost. Long haul exchanges are contracts like power buy understandings and for the most part viewed as private bi-parallel exchanges between counterparties. Discount dealings in power are normally settled and cleared by the market administrator or an exceptional reason autonomous element accused solely of that capacity. Market administrators don't clear exchanges yet regularly require learning of the exchange to keep up era and load adjust. The wares inside an electric market by and large comprise of two types: power and vitality. Power is the metered net electrical swapping scale at any given moment and is measured in megawatts. Vitality is power that moves through a metered point for a given period and is measured in megawatt-hours. Furthermore, for most real administrators, there are markets for transmission blockage and power subordinates, for example, power prospects and alternatives, which are effectively exchanged. These business sectors created because of the rebuilding of electric power frameworks around the globe. This procedure has regularly gone ahead in parallel with the rebuilding of gaseous petrol markets.

The atoms of the two gasses oxygen and hydrogen are put next to one another, they spontaneously combine to form water. This combination results in the release of a huge amount of energy and lets an electron to lose. In a fuel cell, the oxygen and hydrogen are separated by a membrane. The membrane captures the free electrons during the chemical reaction that forms water, which in turn powers anything hooked up to the fuel cell. It too releases little heat. Fuel cells are a remarkable power source. They store energy in two naturally occurring elements i.e., oxygen and hydrogen, and form a single waste product i.e., pure water. Refuelling a fuel cell means providing more hydrogen and oxygen. By the help of an external source of electricity for example a solar panel, one can split the waste water return it into its component parts and use it another time as fuel. Fuel cells have been in use in the space program for a long time. Fuel cells works like a battery, but they do not need electrical recharging. Once those chemicals expire, the battery dies. On the other hand, a fuel cell receives the chemicals, it uses from the outside; so that, it won’t run out. Fuel cells can generate power almost indefinitely, if they have fuel to use. Each fuel cell has two electrodes, one negative, called the cathode, and one positive, called the anode. These are detached by an electrolyte barrier. Oxygen goes to the cathode side, while Fuel goes to the anode side. When both chemicals hit the electrolyte fence, they react, torn apart their electrons, and produce an electric current.

Smart grid technology is a collection of existing and emerging technologies. These technologies will increase efficiency in production, transport and consumption, improve reliability and economic operation, integrate renewable power into the grid, and increase economic efficiency through electricity markets and consumer participation when properly implemented. Maximum progressive smart grid technologies are in electrical transmission. Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems devices allow current transmission lines to distribute maximum power and helps to stabilize the grid with precise power control. High-voltage DC technology can deliver long-distance power with little losses on under water and land, and connect asynchronous grids. Wide area monitoring systems track critical system parameters so that it can prevent development of dangerous instability in the network. Managerial control and data acquisition systems analyse real-time grid conditions that providing data for fast power adjustments. The biggest changes are in the distribution network and for end users, especially commercial and residential users.

Sustainable energy technologies produce Renewable, clean energy from sources such as the sun, the wind, plants, and water. According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2007, renewable sources of energy accounted for about 7% of total energy consumption and 9.4% of total electricity generation in the United States. Sustainable energy technologies have the potential to strengthen the whole nation's energy security, improve environmental quality, and contribute to a strong energy economy. Sustainable technologies permit us to generate electricity, cool and heat our buildings and to travel by sea, land and potentially also by air without producing dangerous greenhouse gases and other forms of pollution.

The development of the modern day electrical energy system took a few centuries. Modern electric power systems have three separate components - generation, transmission and distribution. Electric power is generated at the power generating stations by synchronous alternators that are usually driven either by steam or hydro turbines. Maximum power generation takes place at generating stations that might contain more than one alternator-turbine combination. Depending on the type of fuel used, the generating stations are categorized as hydro, thermal, nuclear etc. Most of these generating stations are remotely located. And that’s why the electric power generated at any station must be transmitted over a lengthy distance to load centres that are usually towns or cities. This is called the power transmission. Now days, power transmission towers and transmission lines are very common sights in rural areas.

Power Electronics is the art of changing electrical energy from one form to another in a clean, efficient, robust and compact manner for convenient utilisation. In a modern building, passenger lift equipped with a Variable-Voltage-Variable-Speed induction-machine drive that offers a comfortable ride and stops exactly at the floor level. With reduced stresses on the motor, it consumes less power and corruption of the utility mains. In mobile sets power management IC's working on Power Electronic principles, meant to handle limited milliwatts, large linear audio amplifiers are rated at a few thousand watts. Often Power electronic converters operate from the utility mains are exposed to the disturbances associated with it. The transients associated with switching circuits and faults that occur at the load point stress devices and converters. Consequently, several protection schemes must be incorporated in a converter. It is essential to protect both the control terminals and the main terminals. Power semiconductor devices are usually protected against voltage spike or over-voltage, over-current, gate-under voltage, over voltage at gate, excessive temperature rise, electro-static discharge.

Solar energy is the most promptly available source of energy. Solar energy is a thermal energy. It does not belong to anyone and is completely free. It is also one of the most important non-conventional sources of energy because it is non-polluting and helps in reducing the greenhouse effect. When we hang out our clothes to dry in the sun, there we use the energy of the sun. Similarly, solar panels absorb the energy of the sun to provide heat for heating water and for cooking. Such systems are available in the market and they are being used in factories and homes. Solar energy can also be used to meet our electricity necessities. Through in Solar Photovoltaic cells, solar radiation gets converted into DC electricity directly. This electricity can either be stored in the battery or can be used as it is. Solar Photovoltaic cells can be used for many applications such as:

a.       domestic lighting

b.       street lighting

c.       water pumping

d.       desalination of salty water

e.       powering of remote telecommunication repeater stations

Wind energy is one kind of solar energy which defines the process by which wind is used to generate electricity. Wind turbines change the kinetic energy into mechanical energy. Generator can convert mechanical energy into electricity. Wind energy is a clean fuel source and doesn't pollute the air like power plants that depends on combustion of fossil fuels, such as natural gas or coal. Wind turbines do not damage the atmosphere that increase health problems like asthma or create greenhouse gases or acid rain. Batteries can store electricity which is generated by wind turbines and these can be used in future when there is no wind. In this situation, energy produced is converted into compressed air. This is generally stored in underground caverns or in large above-ground tanks. One single wind turbine can be enough to generate energy for a household. As wind is the source of energy that is renewable and non-polluting, wind turbines generate energy but it does not use fossil fuels as well as without producing radioactive or toxic waste or greenhouse gases. Taking the figures from the Global Wind Energy Council, we have formed the following list of eight countries that generate the most wind energy in the world.

1. France. Cumulative installed wind power capacity: 10,358 megawatts.

2. Canada.

3. United Kingdom.

4. Spain.

Basically, energy storage systems are configured in one of two ways: a power configuration or an energy configuration, depending on their intended application. In a power configuration, the batteries are used to inject a large amount of power into the grid in a relatively short period of time, which requires a high inverter-to-battery ratio. A typical application would be to simulate a turbine ramp up for frequency regulation, spinning reserve, or black start capacity. For an extended amount of time, the batteries are used to inject a steady amount of power into the grid. This application has a low inverter-to-battery ratio and would typically be used for addressing issues in which power demand changes are occurring over a period as long as several hours, or shifting curtailed PV production to later in the day. This is accomplished by adjusting the ratio of inverters to batteries in the system.

A battery can change chemical energy into electricity by putting certain chemicals in contact with each other in a specific way. Electrons, which are minor parts of an atoms will travel from one kind of chemical to another under the correct circumstances. At the point when electrons stream, this generates an electrical current that can power something. The function of a battery is to put the right chemicals in the right relationships, and then it puts a wall between them. When the two sides of a battery are linked by a wire or another conductor then the electrons starts to flow. Batteries come in numerous styles. We are perhaps most familiar with single-use alkaline batteries. NASA spacecraft generally use rechargeable nickel-hydride or nickel-cadmium batteries like those found in cellular phones or laptop computers. DS1 uses nickel-hydrogen batteries. Engineers think of batteries as a place to store electricity in a chemical form. Batteries tend to expend their charge very quickly. DS1 can last from half an hour to three hours running purely on battery power before the batteries need to be recharged from the solar panels. These batteries are revived a huge number of times over the life of the shuttle.

Rapid reduction of fossil fuels and increasing environmental concerns make energy one of the extreme challenges facing civilization in the 21st century. The Clean Energy Materials Thrust is focused on the design and progress of high performance materials for alternative energy technologies and developing an important understanding of their structure-property-performance relationships. Thrust includes materials for fuel cells, supercapacitors, lithium ion batteries, solar energy conversion, photovoltaics, hydrogen production and storage, and thermoelectric. Growing energy needs of the country require improved efforts on developing materials and technologies which focuses on energy generation, energy harvesting, energy conversion and energy storage. Currently energy materials personify wide selection of novel and advanced materials for the generation and storage of electric power. Energy Materials includes fuel cells, batteries, photovoltaics, thermo-electrics, super-capacitors, hydrogen technologies, photo-catalysis, solar power technologies, magnetic refrigeration and piezoelectric materials. Energy generation, distribution and management are the quickest evolving industries of recent times. The demand to develop parts and sub-assemblies for novel product across the energy sector is increasing.