We use electricity in our day to day life. In the days before electricity, people used oil lamps for light and cooked on fires of wood or coal. This chapter covers the sources of electricity (power stations), electric cells and batteries, electric circuits and their symbols, and conductors and insulators.
1. Sources of Electricity
Any device from which electricity is produced is called the source of electricity. We get electricity from thermal power, hydel power, tidal power, wind power and solar power. Apart from these, we also get electricity from cells and batteries (for example, a wall clock works on a cell).
Power plants are not found everywhere. They are constructed depending upon the natural resources available at that particular place:
- There is a thermal power plant at Neyveli, Tamilnadu, as lignite is available there.
- Wind mills are seen near the hills of Tirunelveli District, which has potential wind resource.
- Solar panels, prevalent in many places, are also used to produce electricity.