Description

Power comes from a power plant to your home through a system of power lines, power substations, and transformers that make up the power grid. This applet shows power flowing through the transformer drum, the meter and into the circuit breaker panel. From the circuit breaker panel it powers various appliances. There are blue switches that you can open and close with a click of your mouse. What happens when you click off and on the blue switch nearest the transformer? You can change from a light bulb to another applicance using the drop down menus. Use your mouse to click the blue switches near the appliances. These switches act like the circuit breaker switches in the circuit breaker panel.

Close all of the switches and then click on the Open plot window button. Click on Start Time. You should see the graph of power usage start. How does the graph change as you open and close the various switches? How does the meter reading change? What happens to the green arrows? Which appliance uses the most power? How much power does the refrigerator use? How much power does the light bulb use?