This is the our technology project about power plants.Blanca Bañas and Manuel Folgado 3ºA, we hope that you like it! :)

1. Electric power plants

2. Index
1.1Energy sources(Uses,Definition and Classification)
2.1Electricity
2.2Electric power plant(How an electric power plant work)
2.3 Transport and distribution of electric energy.
3.1Conventional electric power plant.
3.2 Nuclear power plant
3.3 Fossil fuel thermal power plant(Combined cycle power
plant)
3.4 Hydroelectric power plants
4.1Non-conventional electric power plants
4.2Wind power plants and wind farms
4.3Solar power plants(Photo-thermal power plants and
photovoltaic power plant)
4.4Georthermal power plants
4.5Biomass thermal power plants
4.6Ocean power plants
5.1 Environmental impacts assesment
5.2(Extraction of natural resources, fuel transport,Electricity
generation and final energy use).
6.Investigation of wind turbine.

3. Energy Sources:
-Are natural resources from which we
obtain different forms of energy that
can be transformed for a specific use.
-The energy we consume has many
different uses, for example:
Household energy and Industrial
energy

4. Examples of uses of energy sources
Household uses: The
operating of
electrical
appliances, heating
systems, hot water
systems, heats for
cooking and for
means of transport.

5. Industrial energy:
The operating of
factories and
companies,
construction,
agriculture and so
on.

6. We can classify energy sources in
several ways:
By availability in nature and capacity for
regeneration: Renewable or Non-
Renewable.
RENEWABLE: Abundant and inexhaustive
for example: Trees, the sun, water, the
wind...
NON-RENEWABLE: May or may not be
abundant,depleted when we used them up,
cannot be renewed in a short period of

8. By use in each country:
CONVENTIONAL: Most commonly used
CONVENTIONAL
in industrialized countries, for example:
energy that comes from fossil fuels.
NON CONVENTIONAL: Alternative energy
source, In early stages of the technological
development, solar and wind power belong to

9. Conventional energy
sources

10. Alternative energy sources

11. By enviromental impact:
Clean or non polluting: Low enviromental
impact, do not generate by-products that
pollute the enviroment.
Pollutants: Sources that have negative
effects on the enviroment, for example:
they might generate by-products that
severely pollute the enviroment.
enviroment

12. By origin:
Primary: The energy is obtained directly
from nature, examples: crude oil,
natural gas ,coal, nuclear energy
and renewable energies
Secondary: Resulting from
Secondary transformation
of primary sources, examples: electricity
and some petroleum derivatives

13. Electricity
It's the most widely used form of energy in
inductrialised societies for two reasons:
-It can be easily transformed into other
forms of energy.
-It can be transported easily long distances
Humans have an intimate relationship with
electricity, to the point that it's virtually
impossible to separate your life from it.

14. Even at the loneliest corners of the world,
electricity exists. If it's not lighting up the
storm clouds overhead or crackling in a
static spark at your fingertips, then it's
moving through the human nervous
system, animating the brain's will in every
flourish, breath and unthinking heartbeat.

16. How and electric power plant works.
1.)Some fuel source, such as coal, oil, natural
gas, or nuclear energy produces heat.
2.)The heat is used to boil water to create steam.
3)The steam under high pressure is used to
spin a turbine.
4.)The spinning turbine interacts with a system
of magnets to produce electricity.
5.)The electricity is transmitted as moving
electrons through a series of wires to homes
and business.

18. Transport and distribution of electric energy.
Electric power plants are usually located far away from
the points where the energy is used for safety
reasons.
Electricity can't be stored so it have to be transported to
consumption centres. This transport involves several
processes:
1) Incrising the voltage to 220.000V or 4000.000V to
prevent significant energy loss.
2)Transporting it by high voltage cables attached to
towers
3)Decreaing the voltage at the electricity substations to
3-30 kV.
4)Distribution reducing the voltage to 230-400V

20. Nuclear power plants
This type of plant includes a nuclear
fission reactor that produces the
pressurised steam needed to move the
turbine motor. Uranium is the main fuel
used. Electricity is created by the
uranium fission …

22. How does a nuclear power plant work.

23. Fossil fuel thermal power plants
At this type of power plant water is eated in
a boiler by the heat generated from the
combustion of a fossil fuel, usually natural
gas or oil .The steam that is generated
moves the turbine connected to the
generator

25. Combined cycle of thermal power plants
Electricity is generated as a result of two combined
cycles:
During the fist cycle gas turbine is used, including a
compressor(Machine used to increase or
decrease the pressure of a gas)
The combustion gases are transported to a boiler
where they transfer the energy to the water during
the second cycle.

26. Hydroelectric power plants
This type of power plant uses the potential
energy provovided by the height of the
store water in a dam, converting it into
kinetic energy. This energy moves the
blades of the turbine. Depending on the
destination of the water it can be divided
into two types:Gravity or pump.

27. Gravity-driven hydraulic power plants
Water used follows the course of a river and will not
be reused.

28. Pump-driven hydraulic power plants
Water
descends
into a
reservoir
located at
lower
height, then
pumped to a
higher
reservoir to
reuse it.

29. Sizes of hydroelectric power plants
Large power
plants
Small power
plants
Micro-power
plants

30. Non-conventional electric
power plants.

31. Types of non-conventional
energy power plants.
Wind power plants.
Solar power plants: Photo-thermal power
plants and Photovoltaic power plants.
Geothermal power plants.
Biomass thermal power plants.
Ocean power plants.

32. Wind Power Plants
These power plants use the kinetic energy of
the wind to move the blades of a rotor at the
top of a tower; know as the wind turbine.
Wind power plants are a clean form of
generating electricity. However, they can only
be installed in places with appropiate wind
conditions.

35. Parts of a Wind power plant

36. ADVANTAGES
1 . W in d is R e n e w a b le a n d fre e o f c o s t
2 . P o llu tio n fre e
3 . C a n b e i n s t a l l e d i n r e m o t e v i l la g e s , t h u s r e d u c i n g c o s t l y t r a n s m i s s i o n l i n e s
D IS A D V A N T A G E S
1 . C a p ita l c o s t is v e ry h ig h
2 . L a rg e a re a o f la n d is re q u ire d
3 . M a in te n a n c e c o s t is v e ry h ig h

37. Solar Power Plants
These plants use the energy from the sun
to produce power.
There are two main types of installations:
Photo-Thermal and Photovoltaic power
plants.

39. Photovoltaic power plants

40. Photo-thermal power plants
In this type of power plants, the heat
generated by solar radiation produces
steam that is used to move the rotor in the
generator.
To do this, they use special mirrors, called
heliostats, that reflect sunlight and
concentrate it at one point, where it
reaches a high temperature.

44. Renewable source of energy Capital cost is very high
Large area of land is
Pollution free required
After the capital cost, the Large number of solar
cost of power generation panels are required
Affected by seasons.
is quite low.
Wide range of applications,
powering street lights to
satellites

45. Geothermal Power Plants
These plants use the heat found at deep
levels in the earth. This heat may reach the
surface in the form of steam, gases or hot
water.
Geothermal energy may be used directly
(for hot water and heating industrial use
and so on) and indirectly (the heat
generates steam, which produces
electricity)

46. How does a geothermal power plant
work

47. Biomass Thermal Power Plants
Biomass consists of all organic compounds that are
produced through natural processes. They may
come from the following sources:
Forestry and agricultural waste .
Specific crops, such as sunflowers and sugar beet.
Waste from agri-food industries.
Biomass is subjected to different physycal and
chemical processes in order to produce fuel such as
characoal, alcohol or biogas.

49. Ocean Power Plants
These type of power plants use the energy
from the seas and the oceans, they use
three types of energy from the sea:
The mechanical energy from the tides.
The mechanical energy from the waves.
The energy from the ocean's thermal
gradient.
gradient

50. Enviromental Impact
The building and operating of
an electrical power plant results
in an ecological change in that
region. This is due to the
construction of the necessary
infrastructure and the waste that
this activity generates

51. Enviromental impact assessement
An environmental impact assessment are
the possible positive or negative impact
that a proposed project may have on the
environment.
The main characteristics of each type of
power plant and the impact that they have
on the enviroment are shown in the next
slide:

53. Types of enviromental impact
Extraction of natural resources.
Fuel transport.
Electricity generation.
Final energy source.

55. Extraction of natural resources
The explotation of fossil fuels and nuclear power
means the depletion of resources, which makes it
necessary to find new ones.
Fuel extraction processes are sometimes harmful to
the enviroment. In particular, timber (wood
processed from trees harvested from forests)
extraction has led to the disappearance of large
areas of forests, a process that is continuing even
today.

56. Fuel transport
Oil is transported by means of oil pipelines and oil
tankers . Oil pipelines can suffer accidents caused by
nature or human error, which result in uncontrolled
spills. Oil tankers can suffer accidents at sea, with the
risk of oil spills. Some spills have caused oil slicks (a
film of crude oil leaked from ships which floats on top
of sea water) that have taken years to clean up and
dissipate, and have affected the lives of many plants
and animals species.

57. Electricity generation
Large hidroelectric power plants require water
reservoirs convering large areas, which profundly
change the natural cycle of rivers, flood (area of land
covered by water) large land areas and destroy
ecosystems, in addition to increaing the risk of
accidents.

58. Electricity generation
Conventional thermal power plants:
-They produce air pollution .
-They emit large amount of CO2, which increases the
greenhouse effect.
-They emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide that
cause acid rain.
-The water used in the cooling system is returned to the
enviroment while it's still warm, which can affect both
animal and plant life

59. Electricity generation
Nuclear thermal power plants are accompained by the
risk of nuclear accidents and the problem of nuclear
waste, some of which, remain dangerous for
thousand of years.

60. Final energy use
The fuels we use in vehicles and heating systems emit
gases and particles similar to those generated by
conventional thermal power plants.
When we turn on an electric appliance, we are
consuming energy that has already caused several
enviromental prolems during its extraction, generation
and transportation.

61. Brief comment about wind turbines that create water
from the air.
After we read the article we have realised that is a
very innovative idea that will be very useful for arid
countries where there aren't any posibilities of finding
potable water. It's a very good idea because it won't
cause any pollution although large extension of land will
be required. We think that all of this water produced
in the future will reach places where many adults,
children and old people die because of deshidratation
so we hope that it's the beginning of a huge change in
our world.

62. By: Manuel Folgado
and Blanca Bañas
3ºA