Lesson Plan: Electricity Transmission Networks Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to describe how national electricity grids work and how they respond to changes in demand.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- understand what causes changes in demand for electricity over the course of a day and over the course of a year,
- understand that some power stations are kept below maximum operating power so that they can speed up quickly if the demand suddenly increases,
- understand how quickly or slowly a power station can start up or turn off for the different main types of power stations: coal-fired, gas-fired, nuclear, and hydroelectric dam,
- understand that when the electrical power is transmitted across electricity networks, it is transmitted at a high voltage and a low current.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what electricity is,
- different types of power station,
- what transformers are.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- how different types of power stations produce electricity,
- how transformers work.