Generating Electricity using

Battery & GeneratorElectricity starts with electrons. In many materials, the electrons are tightly bound to the atoms. Wood, glass, plastic, ceramic, air, cotton ... These are all examples of materials in which electrons stick with their atoms. Because the electrons don't move, these materials cannot conduct electricity very well, if at all. These materials are electrical insulators.

But most metals have electrons that can detach from their atoms and move around. These are called free electrons. Gold, silver, copper, aluminum, iron, etc., all have free electrons. The loose electrons make it easy for electricity to flow through these materials, so they are known as electrical conductors. They conduct electricity. The moving electrons transmit electrical energy from one point to another.
Electricity needs a conductor in order to move. There also has to be something to make the electricity flow from one point to another through the conductor. One way to get electricity flowing is to use a generator.

Using a battery: Using a battery, a fuel cell or a solar cell to produce electricity, there are three things that are always the same:
The source of electricity will have two terminals: a positive terminal and a negative terminal.

• The source of electricity (whether it is a generator, battery, etc.) will want to push electrons out of its negative terminal at a certain voltage. For example, a AA battery typically wants to push electrons out at 1.5 volts.
  
• The electrons will need to flow from the negative terminal to the positive terminal through a copper wire or some other conductor. When there is a path that goes from the negative to the positive terminal, you have a circuit, and electrons can flow through the wire.
  
• You can attach a load of any type (a light bulb, a motor, a TV, etc.) in the middle of the circuit. The source of electricity will power the load, and the load will do its thing (create light, spin a shaft, generate moving pictures, etc.).
  Electrical circuits can get quite complex. But at the simplest level, you always have the source of electricity (a battery, etc.), a load (a light bulb, motor, etc.), and two wires to carry electricity between the battery and the load. Electrons move from the source, through the load and back to the source.

Using a generator:A generator is a simple device that moves a magnet near a wire to create a steady flow of electrons.
One simple way to think about a generator is to imagine it acting like a pump pushing water along. Instead of pushing water, however, a generator uses a magnet to push electrons along. This is a slight over-simplification, but it is nonetheless a very useful analogy.
There are two things that a water pump can do with water:

• A water pump moves a certain number of water molecules.
  
• A water pump applies a certain amount of pressure to the water molecules.
  

In the same way, the magnet in a generator can:

• push a certain number of electrons along
  
• apply a certain amount of "pressure" to the electrons

In an electrical circuit, the number of electrons that are moving is called the amperage or the current, and it is measured in amps. The "pressure" pushing the electrons along is called the voltage and is measured in volts. So you might hear someone say, "If you spin this generator at 1,000 rpm, it can produce 1 amp at 6 volts." One amp is the number of electrons moving (1 amp physically means that 6.24 x 1018 electrons move through a wire every second), and the voltage is the amount of pressure behind those electrons.