Homes and businesses today always need electricity for anything from running the heating and air conditioning to appliances and anything in between. But this electricity has to come from somewhere, and electricity comes in various forms. As a power source, electricity has long since been made into a commodity, meaning that it is a product to buy and sell. Modern arrangements mean that a household pays a bill to the local electric company for all electricity consumed, but there must be ways to both regulate and measure electricity flowing into the home. A transformer converts large quantities of power in a power line to electricity on a scale that is safe for the home to use, and transformer test instruments can be used by work professionals to ensure that a transformer is in good working order. Transformer testing is done with specialized transformer test instruments to keep everything in good working order, and without transformer test instruments being used every so often, a transformer may become faulty. This may cut off a home from its electricity source, something that no homeowner would want. How can transformer test instruments and meter testing be done to keep everything running smoothly, and why?
Power Matters
A test meter, for example, checks and measures how much power is flowing into a home, and transformer test instruments can make sure that a transformer is operating normally. But why is all this so important? It should be noted that power comes in different quantities and strength based on the wire or system where it is currently found, and there are units of measurement for this. A homeowner should be familiar with some of these basic terms so that they understand how and why they are charged for the electricity that they are using on a daily basis. For starters, the basic unit of energy is the watt, named after the man who invented it, and watts work the same way as bits in a computer: by the thousand. 1,000 watts together constitute a kilowatt, a common unit of power that a homeowner will deal with on their electric bill and on the home’s electricity meter. In turn, 1,000 kilowatts add up to a megawatt, which is a significant amount of power at one million watts. But even that is not the largest; a gigawatt is composed of 1,000 megawatts, or one billion watts.
In particular, the energy meter on a home will measure the amount of power used per hour, which comes in such units as watt-hours, or Wh. Using an appliance that consumed one kilowatt for one hour has consumed one kilowatt-hour, or 1 kWh. This is what the electric meter will measure, and a homeowner’s electric bill will reflect this. Homeowners may also want to note that often, certain appliances or utilities tend to use more power than others. A fridge will use more power than a toaster, and the heating and air conditioning unit often uses up about 56% of a home’s power, according to data from the EPA. A savvy homeowner will know how to minimize the amount of power that such utilities use to help keep the electric bill under control. The HVAC system, for example, can be kept energy-efficient when proper insulation is installed in the walls and a attic, and when the heating and cooling units are kept clean and in good repair.
Transformers
These are units on a power line that convert power into usable amounts and strength for a home. The raw power inside a power line is too strong for a home and would damage the utilities and appliances there, so transformers act as a sort of airlock. A power plant will produce three different “phases” of AC power all at the same time, and these three phases are offset from each other by 120 degrees. Four wires come from the plant, three for the different phases, and a fourth that is a neutral for the other three. Meanwhile, in three-phase power, at any moment one of those three phases is reaching a peak. High-power, three-phase motors, such as those in industrial applications, or welding equipment use them all and have an even power output.
