Electricity has become the main sources of domestic energy in Australia over the last 200 years and played an important role in today’s society, industry . In the early time when the British started to settle in Australia, firewood was the most important fuel. In 1831, Michael Faraday put forward the electromagnetic induction, which led to the development of electric generators and made the large amount of electricity supply become possible. After 1879 when the perfect light globe was designed by Thomas Edison, electricity soon replaced gas for lightening. Following is the development of electricity in NEWS. 88 Tomorrow the first town in New South Wales to have electric street lights: Young followed later in the year 1889 Street lighting in Penlight and Moss Vale 1890 Street lighting in Broken Hill 1891 Street lighting in Redford 1892 Street lighting in Newcastle 1902 First electric street lights in the city of Sydney installed in King street between Elizabeth and Pit streets 1904 First public power station built at Promontory with a total capacity of 1 500 kilowatts 1905 customers connected (Many customers) were unable to use electrical energy in their factories because of the cost of the motors.
A scheme to hire motors was introduced and two years after its commencement 361 motors were on hire. ) 1910 Decision made to change completely to electric public lighting in the city of Sydney. 1913 Almost 10000 customers, with total consumption of 40000 000 units if electricity. 1914 Two submarine cables lay across the bed of Sydney Harbor to supply the northern side of the harbor. In these days, different devices required different voltages, so that there were different specialized generator and separate lines. For example, street lights and trams required total different system.
Generator had to be relatively close to the loads ( a mile or less for low voltage devices) because transmission was inefficient for low voltage and high current circuit. At that time, there was no device to change the voltage and currents. Nowadays, with the development of transformer, voltages can be increased so high to make long distance transmissions become possible. In a typical power station the voltage generated is around 10000 volts. Through the switchboard station the voltage increase to 50000 volts and is carried to the transmission lines which connect the switchboard and terminal station.
Through the terminal station the voltage decreases back to 11 000 volts. The voltages remaining the same are delivered to a zone substation, located in a particular suburb. Then the voltage are transmitted continually to the pole transformer station and then decreased to 240 v when they are delivered to the housing. The development of electricity led to the invention of new transport vehicle, electric tram, and electric train. Electric trams start running after 1900 and became the major Australia began in 1919, and ran between Broadswords Flinders street and Sandbagging in Melbourne.
Although it has been used as energy resources for Just more than a bit century, the consumption of electricity increases dramatically. It is recorded that Australia has generated a total of 36. Khaki of electricity minion. But a capacity of 227 billion KHz electricity has been generated in 2010. Electricity generated by generator provides enormous, convenient and reliable energy for household appliances, transport function and manufacture industry. However the operation of generator also needs other energy supply. In the beginning, coal is the only resource to be used.
Backwater, Newcastle. But the burning of coal has devastating impact on environment. A large amount of sulfur and nitrogen dioxide pollution are emitted to the atmosphere, which cause people have asthma or lung cancer. Besides, coal is a not renewable energy, so that Australians have been finding another resource to replace coal. Hydro-electricity is the alternative energy that has been developed for a century and to a large scale. It was in 1895, a few year when the electricity got access to public that Australia’s first hydro-electricity power station began operating on the emend of electricity in Tasmania.
Across the country, hydro-electric power supplies about 15 per cent of Australia’s electricity needs. Apart from Tasmania, NEWS government have put into effort to develop the hydro-electricity and the Snowy Mountain Hydro-electric Scheme project was the good demonstration. The idea of this project was put forward by Nelson Lemon, a federal government and conducted by William Hudson. The Snowy Mountain Hydro-electric scheme relies on the snowy mountain resources which is located midway between Melbourne and Sydney, south of Canberra. The engineering project started to be built in 1949 and took approximately 25 years to complete.
The Snowy Mountain Hydro-electricity Scheme project consist of 19 tunnels under the mountains , the construction of 18 aqueducts and the building of 16 dams several power stations and several substations. The scheme catches the water that as falls as rain or melt as snows then uses pipes, aqueducts and tunnels to direct water to the reservoirs (dams). A large amount of water held by the dam were channeled steadily downward through a pipe called a Pentecost. A Pentecost is constructed from the bottom of dam to the narrator which is built at a much lower altitude than dams.
Next , the water pours over the blades of a turbine. Imposing by the gravitational force, water gains a large amount of gravitational potential energy push the blades, making them spin like a windmill. Then the turbine turns a generator. The generator has two parts: rotor and stator. THE rotor containing a magnet and surround by the stator which is actually a metal. Spinning turbine is the motion of spinning the magnet, that create electricity in a metal piece. And the electricity is directed out of a turbine and to the power nines. Mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy.
The output of the scheme was transmitted attacks with km lines. The load-frequency system was installed in two states and in the Snowy Mountain to flow the power through the interconnection. It is agreed that the balance will be divided between the States of New South Wales and Victoria in a proportion of two-thirds to New South Wales and one-third to Victoria. Before the electricity transmitted into NEWS, some amount of the electricity is transmitted into Capital territory. The seven hydro-electric power tattoos of the Snowy Scheme generated 3740 megawatts of electricity when it was completed.
Now, it produces up to 17 per cent of south-eastern Australia’s electricity supply. The supply of hydro-electricity allow for massive industrial development in NEWS and Victoria from the 1960 onwards. The output from hydro-electricity drew down the demand of coal. At the same time, it provided the enough water for irrigation of millions of hectares crop in the Murray and Murdering regions. However, the hydro-electricity has affected negatively the native plants and wildlife to a huge degree. Some fish cannot go back to their birthplace to spawn. Eel and platypus become rarer. The river flowing slowly became muddy and salty.
Therefore, the project of hydro-electricity inevitably changed the balance of ecosystem. To construct this project, federal government allowed more European labors immigrate to Australia. More than 17,000 people participated in. To some extent, the snowy-scheme played a important role in Australia’s immigration history and multicultural society. Besides hydro-electricity, Australia has developed the wind straightway hours electricity that account for. % Australia’s total electricity. South Australia generates the most wind power electricity, having close to the half of the nation’s capacity.
Australia has the most excellent wind resources. Southern coastline has average wind speeds above 8 or even 9 m/s at above mom ground. 50 wind farms have set up across the nation. A wind farm is an area that stood a group of wind turbines, covering large areas of land. The energy in the wind turns two or three propeller-like blades around a rotor and the rotor is connected to the main shaft, which spins generator to create electricity. A 1 km wind farm containing 15 reburies, can produce 1 megawatt hour, that is enough for a town of 2000 people in a developed country.
In Australia the off- shore resources is similar in size to the off- shore resources. The off-shore wind is less turbulent and more consistent than the on-shore wind, so it is more easily to be used. However, it is more expensive to be developed. Therefore, the off-shore development in Australia progressed slowly until the good on-shore sites are used up. Wind power does not emit any poisonous gas, but still cause environmental problems. The passing birds will be killed and the operation of turbines causes noise. Australia has also developed the solar power as an alternative energy.
In 2012, Australia has over,412 megawatts hours of installed photovoltaic power, contributing . 1% of Australia’s electricity consumption. Solar photovoltaic convert sunlight directly into electricity. Some material like silicon has ability to absorb photons of light and release electron that is called photoelectric. When these free electrons are captured and put in a circuit, an electric current form. Silicon is the main material to make solar cell. Lots of solar cell Join together become a solar farm. When light strike the solar-cell, electrons are knocked loose from atoms.
Another way to use solar energy is to convert radiation into heat. Then thermal energy is carried by air or liquid to convert into electricity. For example, in the solar power station, the mirrors reflect rays into the surface of glass tube. The water passing through the tube becomes steam. Blasts of steam spin the turbine and electricity is generated. Australia has abundant of sun radiation resources. Photovoltaic and Solar thermal are progressing equally. The cost of high efficient, durable and more environmentally-friendly photovoltaic cell is expensive and the solar farm occupied a large area of land.
