Basic Electricity Terms
When you read about generators, inverters, and batteries and things like that, the terminology
can be very confusing. If you've never really needed to know these terms, then even if
you were told before what they mean you may have long since forgotten. Here we're going
to explain these terms in a simplified way, and give you some links to other sources
if you want to dig deeper into this subject.
There's so much to say on this subject that I've decided to add to this article periodically
over time, rather than try to do an exhaustive explanation at this time. If you find
it a little confusing, read and return later to read again. The relationships between these
terms are very interesting and will help you understand what's going on with specifications
and what they mean to you and your power system. Even if you never completely understand
it all, this will be helpful.
What is a Volt?
A volt is a unit of electrical force. This force is called Electro-Motive-Force or e.m.f.
To get a feel for what the term means, think of it as pressure. As water
pressure increases, more water volume will flow through a hose when the valve is open.
As voltage increases, more power will flow through a wire and corresponding
Like water pressure, voltage itself does no work, but just describes the 'enthusiasm' (energy
potential) of electrons. When electrons have a higher potential
(voltage) they carry more power and can perform more work. That's why the current can
be the same, and yet at higher voltage there is more power delivered to a load.
What is an Ampere?
An ampere is the number of electrons (1 coulomb) that past a given point in a wire in
What is an Ohm?
An ohm is a unit value of resistance to the flow of electricity. Resistance converts electron
flow into heat. For example the heating element in an electric space heater is a resistor.
This ability to convert power into heat is usually not as pronounced as in a heater,
but the principle is the same and a key element in understanding electricity. The lower
the resistance, the lower the power losses due to current flow.
What is a Watt?
Current flow is the number of electrons flowing in the wire, and voltage expresses the
energy of each electron. The electrical voltage combined with current flow is what does
actual work, and we express the work being done in watts.
One watt of heat energy is generated by
1 ampere of current, with 1 volt of electrical force being applied in a wire that has
1 ohm of resistance.
The formula for power is; (Power in watts) = (voltage) * (amperes)
When we talk about a generator or inverter or any other power delivery system, we use
the watt to describe how much power can be delivered to do useful work.
Whenever electricity is conducted through a wire, some power is lost. From the previous
descriptions you may already see the reason why. All wire has some resistance to the
flow of current. In fact the loss of voltage can easily be described in the following
(Voltage lost) = (Current squared) * (Resistance in ohms)
As you can see if the current doubles through a wire there is a four fold loss of power!
So as the voltage is reduced the current required increases in order to deliver the
same amount of power. This results in a BIG increase in voltage loss from the wire.
This is the big reason for using 24 volts rather than using 12 volts. A 12 volt system
requires twice the current for a given load resulting in 4 times the losses in the
wiring. Many large systems use 48V battery systems, and now you can see the reason
why. My system here is 24 Volts, which I think is a good tradeoff however it's important
to see why higher voltage battery systems are used.
AC & DC
Power that we get from an outlet in our home in the US is AC, 120 Volts, 60
Hertz. The "60 Hertz" refers to the frequency at which the voltage is oscillating.
A hertz is equal to 1 cycle per second. This means that AC power is vibrating at 60 cycles
per second. AC or "Alternating Current" has a constantly varying voltage. AC voltage
varies from 0 to plus and minus 160 volts. The standard 120 volt rating is the RMS voltage
that can be used to predict the actual delivered power based on AC amperage. One ampere
of AC current at 120V AC will generate 120 watts of heat.
This property if oscillation means that power can be "transformed" from 120 volts
to much higher voltages for low loss transmission of power to our homes. We can also
build efficient and low cost power supplies by using a transformer to lower voltages
to a more appropriate level for the device we are operating.
Since virtually all home appliances, lights, and etc. are designed to run on 120v AC 60Hz
that's the power we need for our home.
The problem is that there is no efficient way to store power as AC. Batteries that we
use to store electricity are DC. Their voltage is constant and does not oscillate. DC
stands for "Direct Current". Batteries are wired together to form a single source of
12, 24 or 48 volts. Then we use an inverter to convert the DC voltage to the 120V AC
we need to power our homes.
KW stands for kilowatt, which means 1,000 watts. If your home is using a 1,000 watts of
power for an hour, you have used 1KW Hr. If you are on commercial power you'll see a
summary of how much power you've used during the billing period. Power consumption varies
considerably, but most home owners use from 350KW hrs per month, to 1250 KW hrs per month.
That's a staggering amount of power! Consumption is so high precisely because most consumers
just use live their lives slurping power and then complain at the end of the month.
In fairness, most homes are not designed for energy efficiency. In fact it's usually the