Energy Basics: Power Grid (Text Version)
This is the text version of the video Energy Basics: Power Grid.
The video discusses the basic components of the U.S. power grid and how they work.
[Animated text on screen: Energy Basics: Power Grid]
[Night view of the planet]
>>Narrator: Electricity. It’s an essential part of our world that we might take for granted when we turn the lights on.
[Video shows woman, houses, and transmission lines]
But have you ever wondered where all that electricity comes from and how it makes its way into your home?
Electricity travels along a complex network that makes up our power grid.
It’s a system that’s been called “world’s largest machine" and "the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century.”
[Text on screen: Over 642,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Over 6.3 million miles of distribution lines.]
It includes more than 642,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and over 6.3 million miles of local distribution lines.
[Animation of lines rapidly circling the planet]
That much cable could wrap around the Earth 277 times.
[Video of transmission lines, people walking on a city street, a map of the United States]
All those lines transport electricity from thousands of power plants to over 145 million customers across the country. So how does a marvel like this work?
[Animated graphic showing a power grid overlaid on a city, then video of solar panels, transmission lines, and a city skyline lit up at night]
While it may be extremely intricate, the power grid can be broken down into three main parts: generation, transmission, and distribution.
[Text on screen: Generation]
[Video of a nuclear power plant]
Let’s start with generation.
[Video of solar/PV, wind, hydropower, and transmission lines]
All the electricity that flows through power lines is generated at a power plant using an energy source like solar, wind, or hydropower.
The power plants create high-voltage electricity to ship out across transmission lines, the power lines that you’ve probably seen connected to tall towers in more open spaces.
[Text on screen: Transmission]
The transmission lines move large amounts of electricity dozens, sometimes hundreds, of miles from where it’s generated to where it needs to be used.
[Video of substations]
But before it gets to its final destination, the transmission lines bring electricity to a substation.
[Video of electric meter spinning]
Substations convert electricity into lower voltages so it can be safely sent along distribution lines into your neighborhood.
[Text on screen: Distribution]
[Video of distribution lines]
The distribution lines are often those shorter, wooden poles you see along the road you live on. In more densely populated areas, these lines likely run underground.
[Video of transformers and homes]
They bring all that lower-voltage power to transformers in your neighborhood to be reduced even more so it can flow safely into your home.
[Video of grid overlaid on New York City skyline]
All of these systems work perfectly in sync with one another so that each time you flip a light switch, your lights turn on.
[Video of light bulb burning out]
Unless the bulb is burned out.
[NREL logo]
[Narration ends]
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Last Updated May 1, 2025