Energy Basics: Power Grid (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video Energy Basics: Power Grid.

The video discusses the basic components of the U.S. power grid and how they work.

[Animated text on screen: Energy Basics: Power Grid]

[Night view of the planet]

>>Narrator: Electricity. It’s an essential part of our world that we might take for granted when we turn the lights on.

[Video shows woman, houses, and transmission lines]

But have you ever wondered where all that electricity comes from and how it makes its way into your home?

Electricity travels along a complex network that makes up our power grid.

It’s a system that’s been called “world’s largest machine" and "the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century.”

[Text on screen: Over 642,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Over 6.3 million miles of distribution lines.]

It includes more than 642,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and over 6.3 million miles of local distribution lines.

[Animation of lines rapidly circling the planet]

That much cable could wrap around the Earth 277 times.

[Video of transmission lines, people walking on a city street, a map of the United States]

All those lines transport electricity from thousands of power plants to over 145 million customers across the country. So how does a marvel like this work?

[Animated graphic showing a power grid overlaid on a city, then video of solar panels, transmission lines, and a city skyline lit up at night]

While it may be extremely intricate, the power grid can be broken down into three main parts: generation, transmission, and distribution.

[Text on screen: Generation]

[Video of a nuclear power plant]

Let’s start with generation.

[Video of solar/PV, wind, hydropower, and transmission lines]

All the electricity that flows through power lines is generated at a power plant using an energy source like solar, wind, or hydropower.

The power plants create high-voltage electricity to ship out across transmission lines, the power lines that you’ve probably seen connected to tall towers in more open spaces.

[Text on screen: Transmission]

The transmission lines move large amounts of electricity dozens, sometimes hundreds, of miles from where it’s generated to where it needs to be used.

[Video of substations]

But before it gets to its final destination, the transmission lines bring electricity to a substation.

[Video of electric meter spinning]

Substations convert electricity into lower voltages so it can be safely sent along distribution lines into your neighborhood.

[Text on screen: Distribution]

[Video of distribution lines]

The distribution lines are often those shorter, wooden poles you see along the road you live on. In more densely populated areas, these lines likely run underground.

[Video of transformers and homes]

They bring all that lower-voltage power to transformers in your neighborhood to be reduced even more so it can flow safely into your home.

[Video of grid overlaid on New York City skyline]

All of these systems work perfectly in sync with one another so that each time you flip a light switch, your lights turn on.

[Video of light bulb burning out]

Unless the bulb is burned out.

[NREL logo]

[Narration ends]