Smart Grids, Solar Power and Renewable Energies

Grid Power Transmission

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Power travels from the power plant to the required destination through a system called the power distribution grid. The power to be useful for home or business, it comes from the transmission grid and is stepped-down to the distribution grid. This may happen in several phases. The conversion from "transmission" to "distribution" occurs is in a power substation. It has transformers that step transmission voltages (in the tens or hundreds of thousands of volts range) down to distribution voltages (typically less than 10,000 volts). Since wires extending from Earth's surface to an orbiting satellite are neither practical nor feasible with current technology, SBSP designs include the use of some manner of wireless power transmission.

Electrical power starts flowing from the power plant which consists of a spinning electrical generator. The alternating currents(AC) in power plant are more advantageous than direct currects (DC) as the transformers must compulsorily should possess alternating currents to operate and the power from power distribution grid depends on transformers. Hence AC currents are more in use than DC currents. The three-phase power from generator enters a transmission substation at the power plant which has large transformers to convert the generator voltage to extremely high voltages for long-distance transmission on the transmission grid. This power from transmission grid is stepped-down to the distribution grid n several phases in power substation.