Технические науки/5.
Энергетика
O.Birchenko, K.Chala
National University of Food
Technologies, Kyiv, Ukraine
Electrical Power Industry
Electrical engineering has now subdivided into a wide range of subfields
including electronics, digital computers, computer engineering, power
engineering, telecommunications, control systems, radio-frequency engineering,
signal processing, instrumentation, and microelectronics. Many of these subdisciplines overlap and also overlap with other
engineering branches, spanning a huge number of specializations such as
hardware engineering, power electronics, electromagnetics & waves,
microwave engineering, nanotechnology, electrochemistry, renewable energies,
mechatronics, electrical materials science, and much more.
It is crucial to
understand the Electrical engineering is a professional engineering discipline
that generally deals with the study and application of electricity,
electronics, and electromagnetism. This field first became an identifiable
occupation in the later half of the 19th century
after commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electric
power distribution and use. Subsequently, broadcasting and recording media made
electronics part of daily life. The invention of the transistor, and later the
integrated circuit, brought down the cost of electronics to the point they can
be used in almost any household object.
But what is the
electricity? From the scientific point of view, the electricity is a particular
set of physical phenomena which is characterized by the presence and the
distinctive flow of electric charge. It is created when the small particles –
electrons move between the atoms. This process creates an electric current. And
this current is used to energize different kinds of equipment. Electrical Power
Industry can be fair enough called a backbone of the modern industry and
everyday life.
We use
electrical power for heating, cooling and lighting our houses, for cooking
food, and for numerous devices and gadgets such TV-sets, computers and
smartphones. Electrical power has become the essential necessity for the modern
society. But unfortunately not all people in the world have an access to this
source of energy. Millions of people in poor countries have to survive without
the advantages of electrical power.
Besides the
obvious advantages that electrical power brings to our life there is a definite
set of threats that this modern technology causes. The process of electricity
generation on different kinds of power stations often is not so harmless to the
nature. One of the most efficient but dangerous means of electricity generation
is a nuclear power station. Though this is one of the most effective ways to
generate electricity for the needs of the society, the disastrous catastrophes
in Chernobyl and Fukusima showed us how dangerous
nuclear power is.
The process of
nature friendly electricity generation has been developing greatly these days.
Wind power, solar power and the power of the ocean are used to generate safe
and cheap electricity that will be able to bring our life to the next level of
evolution.
Electrical
engineering became a profession in the later 19th century. Practitioners had
created a global electric telegraph network and the first professional
electrical engineering institutions were founded in the UK and USA to support
the new discipline. Although it is impossible to precisely pinpoint a first
electrical engineer, Francis Ronalds stands ahead of
the field, who created the first working electric telegraph system in 1816 and
documented his vision of how the world could be transformed by electricity.
Over 50 years later, he joined the new Society of Telegraph Engineers (soon to
be renamed the Institution of Electrical Engineers) where he was regarded by
other members as the first of their cohort. By the end of the 19th century, the
world had been forever changed by the rapid communication made possible by the
engineering development of land-lines, submarine cables, and, from about 1890,
wireless telegraphy.
Practical
applications and advances in such fields created an increasing need for standardised units of measure. They led to the
international standardization of the units volt, ampere, coulomb, ohm, farad,
and henry. This was achieved at an international conference in Chicago in 1893.
The publication of these standards formed the basis of future advances in standardisation in various industries, and in many
countries, the definitions were immediately recognized in relevant legislation.
During these
years, the study of electricity was largely considered to be a subfield of
physics since the early electrical technology was considered electromechanical
in nature. The Technische Universitat
Darmstadt founded the world's first department of electrical engineering in
1882. The first electrical engineering degree program was started at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the physics department under
Professor Charles Cross, though it was Cornell University to produce the
world's first electrical engineering graduates in 1885. The first course in
electrical engineering was taught in 1883 in Cornell’s Sibley College of
Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts. It was not until about 1885 that
Cornell President Andrew Dickson White established the first Department of
Electrical Engineering in the United States. In the same year, University
College London founded the first chair of electrical engineering in Great
Britain. Professor Mendell P. Weinbach
at University of Missouri soon followed suit by establishing the electrical
engineering department in 1886. Afterwards, universities and institutes of
technology gradually started to offer electrical engineering programs to their
students all over the world.
Literature:
1. http://tooday.ru/?l=eng&r=17&t=electrical_power_industry-elektroenergetika-da
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering
3. http://www.correctenglish.ru/reading/topics/electricity/