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Answers to other electricity questions below.What do I need to know about AC and DC electricity?
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Answers to other electricity questions below.
Read more about electricity...
This article answers three questions:
1. Why do I have to change AC to DC electricity and DC to AC electricity?
2. Why are inverters and converters necessary?
3. Why are solar panels, wind generators and micro-hydro electrical generators mostly DC?
People use AC and DC electricity every day. AC electricity is what powers most of your home appliances and lighting. Many devices that use batteries must utilize DC electricity because batteries store DC electricity only.
Through the process of photovoltaics, solar panels convert the suns rays to DC electricity. Wind generators and micro- hydro generators also can convert the power in the wind and moving water to DC electricity. When these renewable energy generators need to change this electricity to AC for standard home appliances and lighting, an inverter is used.
Inverters basically change electricity from DC to AC electricity at about 95% efficiency; this means that about 5% of electricity is lost through heat in this inversion process.
Sometimes you may need to change your AC electricity to DC; this will require a converter which also has a power loss that is lost in the form of heat. Devices that utilize converters are cell phones and laptops, to name a few. Charging a battery with DC gives us all the convenience of portability and independence from being constantly plugged in to AC power.
Wind generators and micro-hydro systems many times need to generate DC electricity because of the constant changes in the water flow and wind speed. AC electricity needs a constant steady flow or the frequency of the alternating current changes the form of the delivery of electricity and appliances get damaged. Occasionally this happens when a power company’s transformer goes bad and an appliance like your refrigerator stops working.
DC electricity is more forgiving in that shading on a solar panel, changes in water flow or wind speed with micro-hydro or wind generators will just reduce the amount of electricity delivered without damaging any equipment. Whatever amount of electricity is inverted from your renewable energy generator will then be consumed.
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Get more answers by clicking on these other great electricity articles.
What do I need to know about AC and DC electricity?
How do you use an inverter in a renewable energy system?
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