(In Progress) Guide to Electricity and Power Flow for Non-Engineers
This document is meant to provide a relatively casual, non-exhaustive, slightly hand-wavy-but-not-too-bad introduction into the concept of how power flows throughout the electric power grid. It is targeted towards individuals who do not necessarily have an engineering background but are interested in better understanding the detail behind how one of the most complex human-made systems works. In contrast to basic circuits or physics textbooks, most of the examples I use throughout are in the context of energy systems. I tried to make each section very concise.
To facilitate understanding of the most important concepts and takeaway messages, I will attempt to minimize the amount of jargon and domain knowledge necessary to understand the document. This will necessarily come at the cost of exact, exhaustive scientific explanations for each topic. Equations are shown because it's challenging to explain some concepts without them, but most are kept confined to boxes in the text, so they can't escape too easily. But this isn't a thorough "textbook," so I caution anyone who is expecting a rigorous technical document.
Also, no guarantees on the update frequency of the chapters as this is just something I'm doing for fun. If you see anything that is glaringly incorrect, please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.
Preface/Acknowledgements
Introduction (2 pages)
Current (2 pages)
Voltage (In progress)
Electric and Magnetic Fields (In progress)
AC Power Intro (3 pages)
Alternating vs. Direct Current (3 pages)
Resistance (2 pages)
Complex Impedance (4 pages)
Complex Power (In progress)
Power Line Modeling (TBD)
Power Flow Analysis (TBD)
Optimal Power Flow (TBD)