Construction Set: Smart Grid System

Curriculum for Grades 3-5

Student Edition

Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology

Illinois State University

2017

www.SmartGridForSchools.org

For thousands of years, almost all work was done with muscle power . Animals helped to make work easier but both humans and animals have very little power and get tired easily.

Inventors started making water wheels about 2300 years ago. They were used to crush grain, saw wood, and do many more tasks. About 1,200 years later the Dutch started building windmills to do many of the same tasks as well as pump water.

Look around your classroom and count the things that run on electricity.

How do we make electricity?

How does it get to your school?

Lets find out.

 

Your teacher will set up a steam engine and provide it with fuel. Write down what happens as the engine begins to run.

Cylinder

Wind and water power can only be used near rivers and in windy areas so inventors looked for other options. In 1769, James Watt invented the steam engine. How do you think a steam engine works?

Steam Power (1769-1820): Exploration

Steam Power (1769-1820): Discussion

1. What happens to the water as the fuel burns?

2. Why were steam engines better than wind or water power?

Linking Magnetism & Electricity (1820-1831): Exploration

In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted was experimenting with batteries and wires. He discovered that the needle on a compass would point to a wire hooked to a battery. A few years later, Andre-Marie Ampere discovered that he could make magnets with coils of wire. Ten years later, Michael Faraday figured out how these things worked. He wrote “Faraday’s Law” in 1831 that describes how magnetism and electricity work together.

1. Turn the hand-crank generator. What part spins and what part does not move?

2. Connect two wires from the generator to the two tabs on the motor.

3. A small piece of tape on the motor shaft makes it easier to see it spin.

4. Turn the hand crank. What happens?

1. How do you think the generator is making electricity?

2. How does electricity get from the generator to the motor?

Linking Magnetism & Electricity (1820-1831): Discussion

Inventors soon hooked up generators to their steam engines to make electricity. Electrical energy could then be used in many ways, including for heat, motion, and communication. One of the earliest uses of electricity was the electrical motor, developed by Moritz Jacobi in 1834.

In the 1800s, electricity was only used in factories. Nobody thought they needed it in their houses. That attitude changed quickly when the light bulb was introduced!

1. Take the wires off the motor unit and connect them to the light bulb. Turn the hand crank.

2. What happens as you turn the crank?   

Electric Lights (1841-1900): Exploration

1. What happened when you turned the crank faster or slower?  

 2. How did the electric light bulb change the way people lived?   3. Why must you never allow the two bare ends of the wires to touch each other?  In 1841 Frederik de Moleyns made the first electrical light bulb. Thomas Edison improved the light bulb and made a power source for it. He hooked up electricity and installed light bulbs in the Pearl Street Station neighborhood of New York City in 1882.   

Electric Lights(1841-1900): Discussion

1. Put your generator, motor, and alligator clips away. You will not need them.

  2. You will be hooking up many wires. You will need to cut them

to the right length and strip the insulation off the end using a wire cutter/stripper.

A. Select the right color of wire. B. Place the pieces (power plant, poles, houses, etc.)

where you need them so you know how long to cut the wire. Cut it a bit longer than needed.

New Skills for Electricity: Exploration

C. Adjust the cutter to strip the wire by turning the little dial on the side. It should be set on 20.

D. Strip off about 1 cm from both ends.

 

New Skills for Electricity: Discussion

1. Show your teacher that you can cut a wire to the right length.

2. Show your teacher that you can strip the plastic insulation off a wire.

 

1. Pick a power plant. 2. Use one red, black, or blue wire and one white wire to connect your power plant to a home. Remember: you must always use a colored wire to connect springs together, and white wires for alligator clips. NEVER connect a spring to an alligator clip.

 

Electricity in Your Home (1880-1920): Exploration

You can connect to any of these springs.

Alligator clip for the white wire. This is called the “ground wire” or the “common wire.”

Thick, 1/4" cable connecting the Headquarters Office to the

power plants

4. Have your teacher check that your connections are correct, and then plug your power plant into the Headquarters Office using the cable with 1/4” jacks.  

5. Did your home receive power?  

1. What type of power plant did you use? 2. Talk to your teacher about some of the advantages and

disadvantages of this power source.

Advantages Disadvantages  

 

Electricity in Your Home (1880-1920): Discussion

Thomas Edison used a coal power plant for Pearl Street Station. In 1888 Charles F. Brush built a wind turbine to power lights and motors at his home in Cleveland, OH. The first natural gas power plant was built for Oklahoma Gas & Electric in 1949. The first nuclear power plant was built at Calder Hall in Cumbria, U.K. in 1956. The first modern solar plant was built in the Mojave Desert in 1981.  

Building the Grid (1882-1940): Exploration

Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station used direct current. It can only travel short distances. In 1886, Frank Sprague worked with Alternating Current. It can travel much longer distances than direct current. In 1895, George Westinghouse partnered with Nicola Tesla to build a water turbine at Niagara Falls. It supplied power to the town of Buffalo, NY 20 miles away. They installed transformers to increase and decrease the voltage. Higher voltages could be transmitted longer distances with less loss.

1. Place the power plant at one end of your table and a few buildings at the other end. What can you do to connect these two over a larger distance?

Basically, the taller the pole or the higher the wire is off the ground, the higher the voltage that the line carries. 2. Put three of the tall H poles in a line from your power plant. Transformers must be placed between any change of voltage in your system. A “step up” transformer increases voltage and a “step down” transformer reduces voltage. 3. Set a transformer beside the last H pole.  

 

4. Set distribution poles in line from the transformer to the houses.

5. The pole closest to the house should have a bucket

transformer on it or you must put a transformer between the pole and the house.

6. Start hooking up wires. Use a red, black, or blue wire to connect springs.

7. Use a long white wire to connect the alligator clip on the power plant to the clips on the houses. This wire goes through the holes in the tops of the poles.

 

8. Have your teacher check that your connections are correct, and then plug your power plant into the Headquarters Office using the cable with 1/4” jacks.  

Did your homes receive power? Why or why not?  

1. Why do you need substations (transformers)?  

2. There is a small transformer near your house. Where is it? What do you think this transformer is doing?

 3. Why is a ground wire or common wire needed?  

Building the Grid (1882-1940): Discussion

Electrical Safety

Electricity can be very dangerous. Your skin is an insulator but your blood is a conductor. Low voltage, like what is in a battery, does not have enough force to get through your skin. That is why you do not feel the voltage from these wires.

Your house outlets carry 110 volts. This is enough to push through your skin and into your blood. It will cause your muscles to contract. That is why you jump when shocked. It can also cause the muscles in your heart to “go wild” rather than pump in rhythm. That is why they sometimes use electric shock to get a heart to start pumping again.

Wires in your neighborhood probably carry about 7200 volts. That is more than enough to kill. But, why can birds sit on the wire without being electrocuted? It is because they are only touching one wire. Sometimes a bird will flap its wings and touch both a hot wire and a ground wire. They become the conductor between the two wires and are killed instantly.

If you see a power line laying on the ground, NEVER, EVER, go near it. Get away and call 911 immediately.

The first long-distance high-voltage power line was built in 1917. It carried electricity from a coal mine to the city of Canton, OH 55 miles away. The ability to transmit energy efficiently over long distances changed power companies. The Canton plant eliminated transportation of coal since the power plant and coal mine were located in the same place!

  

Controlling the Grid (1900-1950): Exploration

As the grid got bigger and more complicated, it became very important to be able to shut off parts of it. Switches keep workers safe and allowed power to be routed around problems. These switches were always found at substations and sometimes mounted on poles.

1. Decide where you want to put switches in your grid.

2. Bend the bare end of the wire into a J shape and put it under the screw. Tighten the screw to hold the wire.

Controlling the Grid (1900-1950): Discussion

1. How did you decide where to put the switches in your grid?

2. How do switches make the grid safer?

3. Why is it important to set up switches to send power around problems?

1. Attach a white wire from the alligator clip on the side of the monitor box to the alligator clip on the power plant.

 

2. Attach a gray wire from any spring on your grid to the top spring on the monitor.  

3. Write the location where the wire is attached on the monitor surface. Use a dry erase marker.

 

4. Connect three more gray wires to various locations. Be sure to label each one.

 

Monitoring the Grid (1950-2000): Exploration

 

 

Monitoring the Grid (1950-2000): Discussion

1. What does the monitor tell the power company workers?

 

2. Why is it important to have monitors on the grid?

 

In 1953 American Electric Power built a grid system that connected seven states. This grid allowed companies to share power plants and cover demand in case one of them went off line. This grid required a lot of switches. 

1. Turn off the power to the Headquarters Office before changing the wires.

2. Move your entire table (your entire grid) so it is beside

another group. 3. Put in switches to get the electricity from both power plants

to the neighborhoods.

 

The Grid Grows (1954-1980): Exploration

The Grid Grows (1954-1980): Discussion

1. Why is it a good idea to connect all grids together?   

2. How did the switches improve your grid?   

You now have a large and complex grid. Image how complicated the real grid is with hundreds of power plants, millions of miles of wire, and hundreds of millions of customers. 1. Hook up monitor wires to all customers. 2. Label the locations. Imagine that the Smart Grid Monitor controls the switches. When a problem is detected, switches are automatically turned on or off to get power around the problem. This is how the Smart Grid works. But it gets better, the Smart Meters installed on every house can tell the home owner what is going on with their electricity. The customer can get real-time data sent straight to their cell phone or computer about the energy use at their house.

Making the Grid Smart (2000-2020): Exploration

3. Somebody on your team should take off a wire from somewhere in the middle of your grid while everyone else watches the Smart Grid Monitor. Did any of the sensor lights turn off? Why or why not?   

4. Find and fix the broken wire.    

 5. Unhook another wire from somewhere else in your grid while everyone else watches the Smart Grid Monitor. Did any of the sensor lights turn off? Why or why not?

6. This time, rather than fix the problem, turn your switches on or off

to get power to the affected customers.     

Making the Grid Smart (2000-2020): Discussion

1. With Smart Meters, how does the power company know if a customer’s power goes off?

 

2. What are the advantages to letting the Smart Grid control switches automatically?

   

3. What can the Smart Meter tell the home owner?

 

4. Explain why is it is a good idea for power companies to put Smart Meters on all homes in Illinois.           

Power companies started by putting Smart Sensors and Smart Meters at substations and switching stations. Then they installed them at large businesses and factories. Now they are installing them at small businesses and individual homes as well. There will be well over 4 million Smart Meters installed in businesses and homes in Illinois by 2018.

The grid works well now, but it may not meet our needs in the future Remember when you counted the electrical devices in the classroom at the beginning of this lesson? How many electrical devices do you think were in a classroom 100 years ago? How many will be in a classroom 100 years from now? The Smart Grid is one big step towards managing electrical production and consumption, making our system much more efficient.