How does the electricity produced by wind turbines and photovoltaic cells get onto the main energy grid?

Is this done with fiber optic cables?

Electricity from renewable sources gets onto the grid through metal wires. You can’t transmit AC power through optical fibres, they don’t conduct electricity.

Large installations, built and operated by the utility companies themselves, are connected up in the same way as any other power station.

Small installations, eg., renewables at home, require a legal framework called a feed-in tariff. You are provided with a metering set that measures how much electricity you have exported to the grid. The power gets to the grid through your regular supply lines.

This is in place in Germany and will probably come to the UK in a couple of years time. How long the US will take to catch up is probably a matter for Obama to decide in 2009!


Related Blogs


Here are some other Renewable energy sites that I found for you to browse. Thanks for visiting Windsolarpowerhome.com


$36 billion in loans to renewable energy technologies - The ...
Twitter / @350nz/renewable energy
Salazar will tout Arizona energy - USATODAY.com
Alternative Energy Sources - YouTube
Energy Savers: Renewable Energy
Project renewable energy question? - Yahoo! Answers


Related posts:

  1. How Wind Turbines Generate Electricity
  2. Renewable Energy And Wind Turbines, Solar Panels and Wave Turbines
  3. How much electricity is produced by wind power?
  4. Q. How the electricity is produced by using wind power?
  5. Are vertical wind turbines more reliable in producing electricity than the convential wide span turbines?