--- title: Power stations and the grid — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Power stations and the grid», a lesson of the technology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Almost all the electricity in your house was made by something spinning. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Technology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/) / Power stations and the grid # Power stations and the grid Lesson 32 of the technology course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/0/) — Almost all the electricity in your house was made by something spinning. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/1/) — In a power station, steam, gas, wind or falling water spins a turbine, a wheel of blades, and the turbine turns a generator, where magnets whirl past coils of copper wire and push electricity along them. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/2/) — The power station can be far away, so tall steel pylons carry the electricity across the country on wires at very high voltage, which wastes less on the way. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/3/) — Near your town, transformers in a humming substation turn the voltage down so it is safe enough to use in homes. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/4/) — All the power stations and homes are joined in one big web called the grid, and people in a control room balance it every second. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/5/) — After a big football match, when millions of people put the kettle on at the same moment, they have to add power fast. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/6/) — Power lines and substations are for engineers only: never climb a pylon, keep kites and drones far from wires, and never go near a fallen line. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/7/) — In a power station, fuel or another source heats water into steam, which spins a turbine; the turbine turns a generator, where magnets and coils of wire make electricity. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/8/) — Almost all electricity, except from solar panels, comes from something spinning a generator. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/9/) — In a gas power station, burning gas spins a gas turbine like a jet engine, and the hot exhaust also makes steam for a second turbine; gas stations can start up quickly when demand jumps. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/10/) — In a nuclear power station, uranium atoms split and give off heat, which makes steam to spin turbines; a small pellet of uranium fuel holds about as much energy as a tonne of coal, and the sites are guarded and tightly controlled. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/11/) — The white cloud from a cooling tower is water vapour, not smoke; the towers are wide at the bottom and narrower in the middle, which helps air flow up through them. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/12/) — Pylons are tall steel towers that hold high-voltage wires high above the ground; electricity travels long distances at very high voltage because less is wasted that way. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/13/) — Never climb a pylon, and keep kites and drones far away from power lines. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/14/) — A transformer has two coils of wire round an iron core and changes the voltage, up for long lines and down for homes; substations hum because the iron vibrates. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/15/) — The national grid is the network of lines joining power stations and homes, and it is balanced every second; a sudden jump when millions of kettles go on after a big TV event is called a TV pick-up. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/16/) — In a power cut, use a torch, not a candle, keep the fridge closed, and never touch a fallen line; hospitals have generators that start automatically. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/17/) — A coal power station burns coal to make steam and gives off a lot of carbon dioxide and smoke; the UK closed its last one, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, in 2024. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/18/) — A hydroelectric dam lets water from a lake rush down through turbines; some stations pump water uphill at night and let it run down later, like a giant battery. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/32-power-stations-and-the-grid/19/) — Never swim near dams or reservoirs; the water is cold and deep, with hidden currents. - ← previous: [Roads and road signs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/31-roads-and-road-signs/) - next →: [Wind, sun and other clean energy](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/33-wind-sun-and-other-clean-energy/) - ↑ back to [Technology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/)