What are Types of Electricity?

Learning how to analyze an electrical circuit will not be completed without learning the different types of electricity. Since electricity is an essential life aspect inseparable from our daily life, learning them will only give us benefit.

Types of Electricity

How many types of electricity?

There are a lot of types of electricity. To shorten things here we will answer:

What are the 4 types of electricity?

There are few types of electricity, such as:

• Basic electricity
• Static electricity
• Dynamic electricity
• Renewable electricity

What is Basic Electricity

Basic electricity is a matter around us, made up of the tiniest unit called atoms. Atoms are combining with other atoms to build a more complex particle that exists in everything we can see with our naked eye.

The movement of electrons between atoms is what we know with basic electricity. This atom always consists of an electron (a negative charge), proton (a positive charge), and neutron (neutral).

The electrons are moving in orbit outside the nucleus so it is able to jump outside the atom.

Electricity is generated every time the electrons jump from one to another atom. This movement of electrons is what we call with electrical current that carries electric charges from one point to another point.

What is Static Electricity

Static electricity is an electricity accumulated on the surface of a specific material.

We can produce this type of electricity easily by rubbing two materials together. For a simple example, we can rub our hair with a plastic ruler.

This static electricity is built on the surface and our rubbed materials (objects) will attract each other or even a little spark between them.

At first both materials had neutral charge (both had equal positive and negative charges). When we rub them the electron will move from the hair to the plastic ruler due to variations in the two materials’ electron attraction.

Static electricity occurs when there is an imbalance of electrical charges on the surface of an object. The movement of electrons illustrated above generates an imbalance of electrical charges on both surfaces.

One of them will be positively charged since the electrons are transferred and the other will be negatively charged since the electrons are attracted.

Keep in mind that this type of electricity is not able to produce dynamic current such as DC circuits or AC circuits.

What is Dynamic Electricity?

Dynamic electricity is what we use everyday to operate our electrical devices.

Remember what we have learned about what is current?

Current is the flow rate of electrons in a closed path. This rate of moving electrons is measured in Ampere.

Keep in mind that a conductor is essential to make this happen, for example, a copper wire. The electrons are moving from a point to another point with a specific speed, and this speed is the current, a rate of flow of electrons.

Observe the equation for current below:

Where: 

i = current, measured in Ampere (A)

q : electric charge, measured in Coulombs (C)

t : time period, measured in seconds (s)

Translated into easy explanation:

Dynamic electricity (i) is the amount of charge flowing (q) from point A to point B in a circuit in a given time (t).

When talking about supplying energy, current can be used to measure the amount of energy supplied for a given time.

Unlike static electricity where we can produce it simply by applying movement to the materials, the dynamic electricity comes from chemical or physics reaction.

For a chemical reaction, we know a battery or battery cell.

For a physics reaction, we know a generator where we create a magnetic field to produce electricity.

Furthermore, dynamic electricity is divided into alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). More about this topic is explained in other posts, but the main difference is: AC current has electrons that are moving back and forth in a circuit (bidirectional) while the DC current only has one flowing direction.

What is Renewable Electricity?

There are two most popular renewables because we almost do not need to use any material to produce electricity, such as coal, oil, nuclear, etc. These two are solar electricity and hydro electricity.

What is solar energy?

Solar electricity is electricity that is generated by solar energy with the help of Photovoltaic (PV) panels. This panel is used to convert the solar energy generated by the heat of the sunlight into solar electricity.

How do Photovoltaic panels convert the heat into usable electricity?

The PV panel is constructed from thin semiconductor layers, mainly silicon.

What is hydro energy?

Generating electricity by using moving water is what we know as hydro electricity. It means the electricity is generated mainly by water (hydro) but only when it moves as intended.

It uses the basic concept of a mill but much larger, vastly implemented, and able to scale for better efficiency.

Nowadays, a huge turbine is installed where the vast volume of water moves at high velocity such as a waterfall or even a dam. Electrical generators are installed with a specific mechanism to make sure it can produce electricity only by the movement of the turbine caused by the water.

Summary of Types of Electricity

There are several types of electricity, including basic, static, dynamic, and renewable electricity.

Basic electricity:

• The movement of electrons between atoms is what we know with basic electricity.
• This atom always consists of an electron (a negative charge), proton (a positive charge), and neutron (neutral).

Static electricity:

• Static electricity occurs when there is an imbalance of electrical charges on the surface of an object.
• The movement of electrons illustrated above generates an imbalance of electrical charges on both surfaces.

Dynamic electricity:

• Dynamic electricity (i) is the amount of charge flowing (q) from point A to point B in a circuit in a given time (t).
• When talking about supplying energy, current can be used to measure the amount of energy supplied for a given time.

Renewable electricity:

• Solar electricity is electricity that is generated by solar energy with the help of Photovoltaic (PV) panels.
• Generating electricity by using moving water is what we know as hydro electricity.

Frequently Asked Questions