Electrical power plant

This article is about Electrical power plants. For other uses of the term Power, please see Power (disambiguation).

An electrical power plant converts other forms of energy to electrical power, and either uses it to provide local requirements or transmits it into an electrical transmission grid. Multiple technical approaches exist to achieve this general goal, and they are usually classified by the source of energy employed and by the way this source is being processed:

• Biomass power plant [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Coal-fired power plant [r]: Please do not use this term in your topic list, because there is no single article for it. Please substitute a more precise term. See Coal-fired power plant (disambiguation) for a list of available, more precise, topics. Please add a new usage if needed.
  • Conventional coal-fired power plant [r]: power plant that burns coal in a steam generator to produce high pressure steam, which goes to steam turbines that generate electricity. ^[e]
  • Integrated gasification combined cycle power plant [r]: a.k.a. IGCC; uses coal to produce a synthetic gas that is burned to drive an electrical generator, while produced steam is used to drive another generator. See the Integrated gasification combined cycle article on Wikipedia. ^[e]
  • Fluidized bed combustion power plant [r]: burns coal in a fluidized bed; steam produced as a by-product also drives an electrical generator; see the Fluidized bed combustion article on Wikipedia ^[e]
  • Oxygen firing power plant [r]: a.k.a. Oxy firing plant, works like a conventional coal-fired power plant but uses oxygen instead of air to burn the coal; see the Oxy-fuel combustion process article on Wikipedia ^[e]
• Combined cycle power plant [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Combined cycle gas turbine power plant [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Fossil fuel power plant [r]: An electrical power plant that converts the combustion heat energy derived from burning a fossil fuel, such as coal, natural gas or a petroleum fuel oil, into electricity. The combustion heat energy may be used to generate steam for a steam turbine that drives an electrical generator or it may be used directly in a gas turbine or internal combustion engine to drive an electric generator. ^[e]
• Gas turbine power plant [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Geothermal power plant [r]: An electrical power plant that extracts heat energy stored beneath Earth's surface and uses it to generate electricity. ^[e]
• Hydroelectric power plant [r]: An electrical power plant that generates electric power by converting the energy in falling or flowing water into electricity; water is directed through turbines which spin to generate electricity. ^[e]
• Natural gas-fired power plant [r]: An industrial plant which produces electricity by burning natural gas in a steam generator that heats water to produce high-pressure steam that flows through a series of steam turbines which spin an electrical generator to produce electricity. ^[e]
• Nuclear power plant [r]: A power plant, often electric, that uses the energy derived from controlled (non-explosive) nuclear reactions to generate electricity. Conventionally, nuclear power plants used the heat energy derived from nuclear fission to generate steam, which in turn generates electric power. ^[e]
• Oil-fired power plant [r]: An industrial plant which produces electricity by burning fuel oil in a steam generator that heats water to produce high-pressure steam that flows through a series of steam turbines which spin an electrical generator to produce electricity. ^[e]
• Solar power plant [r]: An electrical power plant that generates electricity directly from sunlight either by using photovoltaics or by focusing solar radiation into a concentrated beam of heat that is used to generate steam for conversion into electric power. ^[e]
• Thermal power plant [r]: An electric power plant in which all of the electricity is produced by using a heat source to generate steam that drives a steam turbine which rotates an electrical generator. ^[e]
• Tidal power plant [r]: Add brief definition or description
• Wind power plant [r]: An electric power plant that converts air movement (wind) into a useful form of energy by using wind turbines to generate electricity. ^[e]