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There are two main types of electricity flowing through your home: alternating current and direct current. The vast majority of devices around you are powered by alternating current.
By allowing electrons to ebb and flow through your home’s wiring, it is possible to quickly meet changing electrical demands. But once upon a time, direct current was the standard, and only after the end of the decades-long feud between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison did the world stop on AC.
How does direct current work?
Direct current is pretty simple. Direct current flows strictly in one direction. This means that the electrons are pushed from the current generator and continue to move forward through the wire until they reach your device, do their work, and then continue through the outlet to complete their circuit.
Direct current is usually generated by rotating a coil of wire inside a magnet. Here there is a loss of efficiency due to sparks and heat caused by the friction of certain moving parts. The DC current generated is related to the speed at which that motor rotates and remains consistent. Devices must operate on the same current to avoid overloading or underpowering. When direct current was part of the grid, this resulted in multiple overlapping power suppliers each generating specific voltages, compatible only with devices with the appropriate designation. It was a mess.
How does alternating current work?
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Alternating current has electrons moving forward and back through the wire. This is caused by a change in the way energy is generated. Alternating current is usually generated by rotating a magnet inside a coil of wire. As the magnet rotates, its poles alternate, pushing and pulling electrons in the surrounding coil.
While direct current would look like a single straight line when measuring current over time, alternating current looks more like a sine wave: it rises, reaches a peak, then falls, and finally reverses. The advantage is that the intervals between peaks and troughs can be shortened or lengthened to change the final current and meet the requirements. This made power transmission more flexible than direct current, as all devices of different voltages could benefit. However, power was lost whenever AC needed to be converted to DC at home.
Where is direct current most useful?
If AC is so good, why bother with DC at all? Although most of our home appliances have sufficiently erratic power requirements that AC is useful, there are a few applications where DC is more efficient. The big one is charging the batteries. Batteries usually have one high voltage at which they charge and discharge. (Yes, some of the more modern batteries out there have microcontrollers for adjustment, which are commonly used with vaping pens.) When you charge standard AA or AAA batteries, the charger converts the AC voltage from your wall to DC.
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As mentioned, there is a loss of efficiency in these conversions, but if you could get power from a DC source, you could enjoy improved electrical efficiency. Solar panels are a good example. Solar energy creates direct current and there is a loss of efficiency in converting that energy into alternating current for immediate use. However, pumping DC solar power into a battery increases the amount of electricity that can be captured. A solar charge controller between them ensures the most efficient transfer considering the variable solar energy output.
Unfortunately, the battery will still need to be converted to AC at some point to work well with most home appliances. Some devices that have a single, constant power consumption can be reliably connected directly to DC power. DC freezers and refrigerators are especially popular in off-grid homes because they can avoid the loss of efficiency when converting to AC. Some enterprising people have even managed to design a home with DC power. In addition to consumer applications, you’ll also see high-voltage direct current lines fed into transformers where they are converted to alternating current before going to residential areas.
In the end, DC gets you closer to the power source with greater efficiency than AC, but because our electrical demands change, AC gives us the flexibility we need to change gears quickly.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn
Links: How does direct current power work? – Tekmonk Bio, How does direct current power work? – Kungfutv, How does direct current power work? – Blogtomoney
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