Every time you use electricity in your home, from your computer to your TV (if you live in the united states or Europe) you are using AC, or Alternating current. Things like solar panels, and wind turbines produce DC, or Direct Current (edit: wind turbines can also produce AC). (the difference being that DC goes in one direction around the circuit, where as AC wiggles back and forth) That means that if you want to use solar panels, or wind turbines to power your home you have to use a little device called an inverter. An inverter changes DC to AC so that it will work with your stuff. Why, you may ask do we have AC instead of DC? Well, a long time ago a big fight happened, Thomas Edison backed DC. George Westinghouse backed AC. Westinghouse won.

There are a lot of good reasons why AC won. At the time the grid was small, you had lots of tiny power plants all over the place. Over short distances AC lines lose less electricity (to things like heat) than DC does. However with today’s modern grid (big power plants far away from the places that use the electricity) DC lines make much more sense. Over long distances DC power lines lose far less than AC. So why am I going on and on about this stuff? And what does this have to do with Europe or Wind Power? So glad you asked.

Continue reading Europe Considers The Benefits Of Going To DC Power Grid →