Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering

Introduction

The technological advancement has been achieved so far by faming the energy in the most useful manner. From transportation to cotton mill, from airline to emergency medical services every modern amenity demands energy to operate. For the last two hundred years or more, we have used fossil fuels as the major source of energy. The valuable fossil fuels are in the form of coal and petroleum oil and gas. The most useful form of energy that can be widely used is electrical energy. Electrical energy is the most convenient form of energy to transmit across a long distance via current carrying conductor. We, the modern people, are completely dependent on electricity. The prime source of power of any modern civilization is electricity. The power flows from the generating end to the user via a very complex network, spread over thousands of kilometers, across different states and nations. This whole system through which these transactions of energy occur is known as power system. Power system deals with the power in the form of electricity. Power system plays a major big role in technological development and economy of the world. In this chapter we shall build a general idea about how the electrical power is generated and travelled a long distance before its utilization.

Basic Structure of Power System

We have already discussed that power system starts at the generating station and ends at the electrical load of the users. A lot of things happen in between the source and utilization of the power. We can segregate the whole path of the power flow into three different operational divisions. These three divisions constitute the complete operation of the power system. Let us elaborate our discussion on these three divisions of power system – generation, transmission and distribution.