Electric Power - Explanation

Explanation

Electric power is transformed to other forms of power when electric charges move through an electric potential (voltage) difference. When an electric charge moves through a potential difference, from a high voltage to a low voltage, the potential does work on the charges, converting the energy in the potential to kinetic energy of the charges, or some other form. This occurs in most electrical appliances, such as light bulbs, electric motors, and heaters; they consume electric power, converting it to mechanical work, heat, light, etc.

If the charges are forced to move by an outside force in the direction from a lower potential to a higher, power is transferred to the electric current. This occurs in sources of electric current, such as electric generators and batteries.

Read more about this topic:  Electric Power

Famous quotes containing the word explanation:

    Auden, MacNeice, Day Lewis, I have read them all,
    Hoping against hope to hear the authentic call . . .
    And know the explanation I must pass is this
    MYou cannot light a match on a crumbling wall.
    Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)

    We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.
    W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)

    To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.
    Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)