Talk:Electric power

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Merge

You know, I've been in the business for decades and I've never heard of anything called "Watt's Law" until this very hour. I'm not convinced Watt's Law should even exist - no need for a merge, just redirect it to this article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a steam law, a hypothesis due to Watt, known as Watt's law; one might want to rewrite the article from sources about that, like this and this and this. Dicklyon (talk) 18:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Passive devices

The distinction between passive and active devices in electrical engineering, as explained in Passivity_(engineering), is subtle and somewhat peripheral to the main topic of electric power. Therefore I have removed the sentence about light bulbs, heaters, and electric motors being passive devices. While light bulbs are certainly passive devices, many electric motors can also be operated in reverse, transforming mechanical into electrical power, so calling them passive is likely to be confusing in this context. CharlesHBennett (talk) 13:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concrete damage by electric cable picture

In the picture, it looks like the cable melted due to excessive current. The concrete appears unharmed. I think the picture is mislabeled and is not appropriate for this topic. OhioFred (talk) 13:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this picture is indeed inappropriate for this topic. 129.132.4.41 (talk) 13:56, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I had the same reaction as OhioFred. IP129 or anybody else who knows, how is the concrete damaged, where is the cable, and WHY is this appropriate for a general article about electric power? --WBTtheFROG (talk) 21:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Add formula

Can following formula be added ?:
P= W/t
W stands for labour (in Joule) and t for time (in seconds) KVDP (talk) 14:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

History

A short history section would be interesting about things like when was the first power plant build, when did electircity come into widespread use and things like that. Or at least a link to such a site 94.222.248.51 (talk) 16:03, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Poynting Vector

Max Born and Emil Wolf, "Priciples of Optics: Electromagnetic Theory of Propagation..." describes very well the Poynting Vector. It would make an excellent reference for this article.

musant (talk) 20:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Electricity into Electric power

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a

Merge Proposal.
Please do not modify it.
The result of the request for the Proposed Merger of Electricity into this talk page's article was:

Not Done—Consensus Reached.

Electricity is a colloquialism merger of the words electric-city. I propose electricity should be merged into electric power since both essentially mean the same thing but electric power is more clear. Brian Everlasting (talk) 15:01, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is about the stupidest proposal for merging I have ever seen. This article is a small subset- a subarticle- of the electricity article, and the electricity article is much bigger, far more general, and includes much that has absolutely nothing to do with electrical power. I could not be more opposed to this merge proposal.GliderMaven (talk) 17:02, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not proposing deleting any of the information included in the electricity article. I'm saying the information should be moved to the electric power article. There's no reason wikipedia should use a colloquialism to describe an important power & energy topic. Brian Everlasting (talk) 17:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm saying you need to drop this extraordinarily bad idea, but we'll see what others think.GliderMaven (talk) 17:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Brian Everlasting: Your etymology of electricity as a colloquialism that is a compound of the words "electric" and "city" is totally false: it was formed by adding to the word electric the suffix -ity which means "state or condition" [1]. I agree with GliderMaven in opposing the merger; I think the terms are different enough that separate articles are appropriate. --Chetvorno^TALK 17:26, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination withdrawn. Brian Everlasting (talk) 18:42, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am obviously late to this discussion, but would like to say I also oppose the merger proposal. The electric power article deals primarily with technical issues related to the electricity sector and deserves a page of its own. Whereas the article on electricity covers the physics of electricity and is therefore much broader. The page I would merge into this article is the page on electrical energy. That could be improved and reduced to a section in its new home, along with a suitable redirect. Does anyone have any comments on that idea? Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 19:21, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

— — — — —
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a WP:PM.

Please do not modify it.
Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 14:44, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A copy of this template can be found here.

Low entropy sentence

I am about to remove the following sentence:

Electrical power provides a low entropy form of energy and can be converted into motion or other forms of energy with high efficiency.^[1]

That is simply not correct. Electricity (or electric power if you like) is a form of work and, as such, represents the transfer of energy without entropy: not low but zero.^[2] For the record, the full reference to Smith.^[3] Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 19:43, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have access to these sources, but apart from the fact that zero entropy is intrinsically low, in any real circuit there is loss of entropy due to resistive losses- and even superconductors have some, albeit tiny, resistivity. Thus an electrical system has a calculable entropy which is non zero.GliderMaven (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be abusing the language as well; electricity is not a form of work; it does work. In the sentence you quote, in context, the phrase 'electrical power' is clearly referring to electrical power systems, not the electrical power itself.GliderMaven (talk) 20:03, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello GliderMaven. You are right. The correct phrasing is that electricity does work on the system (containing, say, an ideal electric motor). But that doesn't invalidate my point about the entropy transfer being precisely zero. I am not going to argue the toss about whether the sentence stays or goes. It is not so wrong as to be offensive. In passing, superconductivity has "exactly zero electrical resistance" too (strange as it may seem) — check out the opening sentence on that article. Perhaps a consensus might emerge on the phrase "low entropy"? Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 20:21, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Everything in our universe has some degree of entropy it's a very general concept. Note that superconducting coils are not completely zero resistance; if you set up a coil with a current flowing, after a few months it will have decayed. This is a practical problem with MRI machines, as the operators have to periodically recharge the field.GliderMaven (talk) 20:43, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

n.b. To be strictly accurate a superconductor is theoretically perfect, but most real world systems using superconductors have non zero resistances, see: [2]GliderMaven (talk) 20:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Environmental Physics By Clare Smith 2001
^ Carrington, Gerald (4 August 1994). Basic thermodynamics (1 ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-851747-4.
^ Smith, Clare (2001). Environmental physics. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20191-8.

I deleted the entire sentence. Not because of objections about entropy, but because the statement

power provides energy and can be converted into motion

Is nonsensical when considering the technical definitions of these terms. Hadron137 (talk) 06:07, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Symbol used to represent voltage

Why do you use V as symbol for electric potential (typically measured in volt (V)). I've only ever seen U as a symbol for that, i.e. Ohm's law is I=U/R. V makes me think of volume in formulas. 85.230.176.248 (talk) 21:00, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Because "V" is the symbol usually used in English-language references. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:41, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Article context

It's not clear if this article is about power —in electrical form—as a physical concept, or about the electric utility service. The lede begins as a description of the physical concept, but then pivots to a description of the electric utility. On which topic should this article focus? If both, how should these concepts be made more distinct? Hadron137 (talk) 05:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree

The first two sentences refer to the first meaning, the third sentence to the second: "Electric power is the rate, per unit time, at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Electric power is usually produced by electric generators," Since the article is dominated by the second, I suggest creating a small page "Electric power (measure)" and moving the first concept to it. Sampenrose (talk) 23:06, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree strongly with the above proposal. The main meaning of "electric power" is the measure, and that should stay the main topic of this article. We already have Electric grid, Electric power industry, Electric power system, Power station, Electricity generation, and Electric utility to cover the other meaning. Because most electric power is generated by electric utilities, if we need to have a little information about them in this article, that's ok. --Chetvorno^TALK 02:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake at section "Alternating current".

If I'm not wrong, there is a mistake in the power formula at section "Alternating current"; it should be 2 instead of sqrt(2). Vrms=Vp/sqrt(2) Irms=Ip/sqrt(2) Then Vrms*Irms = Vp*Ip/2 (not sqrt(2)). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cexmayo (talk • contribs) 13:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Environmental Physics By Clare Smith 2001

[carrington-1994-2] Carrington, Gerald (4 August 1994). Basic thermodynamics (1 ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-851747-4.

[smith-2001-3] Smith, Clare (2001). Environmental physics. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20191-8.

[1]

[2]

[3]