Be the

source

Delivering
current
electricity
So, the National Grid is part of a gigantic
simple circuit connecting houses, factories,
Delivering
hospitals and schools to the power stations.
There is something extra...

...the Transformers!
current
Why do we need transformers? Why are
the power line cables always in sets of 3?
Why do we need such high voltages for
the power lines cables? Why do we use
electricity
t i ity to
ectricity t
alternating current (AC) to deliver electricity
to or homes?
your
your home
ho
The houses are the load. A simple circuit
The turbine and generator is the power supply.
The National Grid lines connect the power
supply to the load.

Some facts Why do the cables heat up?

In the UK there are more than 180 big Whenever an electric current flows through The power P or heat spent (dissipated)
power stations. There are millions of homes, a wire the wire heats up. This is known as in a resistor (wire or bulb or national grid
schools and factories. This and the fact that joule heating. As the negative electrons try conductors, for example) is current x voltage.
energy can’t be stored is what makes the to move past the positive ions in the wire
Grid so difficult to operate. It’s like having they attract them and so make the ions
P=IxV
lots of batteries and lots of bulbs in the vibrate more strongly. Thin wires heat up But we know from
simple circuit and having to know which more than thick ones. The thicker the cable Ohms Law that
ones will be switched off/on and when! the less the resistance (we could imagine V= I x R, so P=Ix ( I x R )
Demand (load) must be matched by the that a thicker cable represents a wider
Or
supply (generation power supply). This roadway) and the smaller the resistance,
can be more than 50 000 MW and requires the less the heating. The cables of the grid P=I2 x R
that people sit down and forecast what the are already nearly as thick as a rolling pin We can see from this that if the current is
load will be and how to supply it with the and arranged in bundles and are therefore halved then the heating, P, is only a quarter
available power stations. All this is done in very heavy. The pylon would have to be a of what it was. This means losses due to
one place in Berkshire, the National Grid lot stronger to carry thicker and heavier heating are reduced by 75%....a huge
Control Centre. cable or more in a bundle. amount. The reason is simply because the
The Super Grid (voltage greater than 200 kV) In the simple circuit the current is very small heating effect goes up as the square of the
cables are more than 20 000 km long. Like and so the heating is small anyway. The current. As we cannot reduce R any more
all conductors, these cables are heated by wires are still thicker than the filament of it makes sense to reduce the current. But
the current that flows through them. the bulb. We have made the wires of the if we reduce the current we must increase
Grid about as thick as they can be, so if we the voltage in order to keep the power P
want to keep heating losses down the next the same.
way is to reduce the current.
 How
ow is the
th
The current is reduced simply by increasing
the voltage. This ensures that the power
transmitted stays the same but the joule
heating effect is reduced. Easy to say but
not so easy in practice!
What is required is a transformer. Remember
that it is having to transform voltages at very
high power. This means the transformers at
an electricity substation are big – some weigh
more that 270 tonnes before oil is added –
current
that is bigger than whole diesel locomotives.
The transformer is a neat trick played on
nature. You will know that if a wire is moved
in a magnetic field a voltage is generated
reduced?
d d
between the ends. The wire “experiences”
a moving magnetic field. Now imagine an
electromagnet with a second coil placed
near it. Moving the second coil will generate
a voltage across the ends of the coil. Step down transformers are used for
Now keep the second coil stationary and welding, cooking hobs, electric furnaces
put AC into the electromagnet (AC varies for melting metals. In these cases a high
with time). current for the heating effect is desirable.
The magnetic field of the electromagnet Step down transformers are used on the
will increase and decrease and the second grid for bringing the high voltages down to
coil will “experience” an increasing and a safer 230 V for our domestic use.
decreasing magnetic field. The second coil Step up transformers are used in fluorescent
will “think” it is being moved in a magnetic VS / VP = NS / NP
tubes, X-ray machines and of course on the
field and a voltage will be generated across Grid to reduce the current by increasing If no energy is wasted
the ends of the coil. This is a transformer, the voltage. in the transformer
the electromagnet is the primary coil and Power in = Power out
the secondary coil is connected to the load. Of course in reality there are considerable
losses due to heating and these big VP x IP = VS x Is
If the number of coils in the primary and the transformers are oil cooled. Although the %
secondary, is the same, the voltage across of energy lost on National Grid transformers
the secondary is the same as the voltage is small, they have an efficiency of 99.8%
across the primary. under normal operating conditions. The
With more coils or turns on the secondary fact that they transmit such large amounts
the voltage is increased, step up; of power means a lot of heat is generated
and with fewer turns we have a step on the transformer. This heat is removed by
down transformer. circulating oil around the windings.

Magnetic
Primary winding Flux ǩ Secondary winding
Np turns Ns turns
Primary current Ip Secondary current Is

+ –

Primary Secondary
voltage Vp voltage

– +

Transformer
Core
 Questions
uestio
Answered
Answeredd

Do transformers work with AC and DC? Line 3

Transformers will only work with AC. The of a revolution behind the other. These are
first power station was built in London the three phases and each is carried on a
in 1882 and used DC. At that time separate cable which is why the conductors
engineers struggled to decide whether of the power lines come in sets of three. The
to use DC or AC. AC won because neutral or return current is sent through the
electricity can be transmitted at high ground from your house back to the power
voltage and lower current so reducing station which is one reason why good
energy losses. Currents are still high earthing is so important! In some countries
however and can be more than 5000 all three phases are used in houses but in
Amperes – compare that to the current the UK we only use one single phase in
of 10 A in your kettle! homes. Factories use all three phases for
Each generator has three coils and so greater power. Line 1 Neutral Line 2
produces three outputs, each one third

High voltages allow us to transmit at lower

current so why not use even higher voltages?
The power line cables are supported very high voltages the air begins to
from the pylon and separated from break down allowing current to leak
them by ceramic insulators. As the even if a spark is not produced. The
voltage increases, better and heavier National Grid has arrived at a happy
insulation is needed. In any case at medium of 400 000 V for the Supergrid.

Some figures
Real power lines may carry currents of more than a thousand
Amperes. At a phase-to-earth voltage of 160 000V this
implies a power of 480 000 000 W or 480 MW shared
across 3 phases. If we use conductors in bundles, rather GCSE Exam specifications at GCSE
than singles, we can substantially increase the current a
line can transmit. AQA spec A P1.4.2 OCR Physics B P2b
The National Grid Find out about the
If the resistance of the cable is 0.1 Ohm per kilometre the
AQA Physics 3 13.9 National Grid
voltage drop for each kilometre is 1000 A x 0.11 or 100 V.
The energy dissipated per kilometre is 1000 A x 100 V or 100 How do transformers work? OCR 21st C
kW. So even high voltage lines can dissipate a great deal Edexcel P1 5.12 Physics A, P 5.4
of energy through heat losses. This is why it is important Generation and How is mains
to keep the current and the resistance as low as possible. transmission of electricity electricity produced?
 A simple
simp e
circuitt

The lamp is the load.

The battery is the
power supply.
The wires connect the
power supply to the load.
+
–
Education & Skills
National Grid
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