Electrical generator in the context of Wind turbine

A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station that burns fossil fuel, such as coal, oil, or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machines that convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, which then powers an electrical generator. The prime mover may be a steam turbine, a gas turbine or, in small plants, a reciprocating gas engine. All plants use the energy extracted from the expansion of a hot gas, either steam or combustion gases. Although different energy conversion methods exist, all thermal power station conversion methods have their efficiency limited by the Carnot efficiency and therefore produce waste heat.

Fossil fuel power stations provide most of the electrical energy used in the world. Some fossil-fired power stations are designed for continuous operation as baseload power plants, while others are used as peaker plants. However, starting from the 2010s, in many countries plants designed for baseload supply are being operated as dispatchable generation to balance increasing generation by variable renewable energy.

A nuclear reactor is a device used to sustain a controlled fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for commercial electricity, marine propulsion, weapons production and research. Fissile nuclei (primarily uranium-235 or plutonium-239) absorb single neutrons and split, releasing energy and multiple neutrons, which can induce further fission. Reactors stabilize this, regulating neutron absorbers and moderators in the core. Fuel efficiency is exceptionally high; low-enriched uranium is 120,000 times more energy-dense than coal.

Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid coolant. In commercial reactors, this drives turbines and electrical generator shafts. Some reactors are used for district heating, and isotope production for medical and industrial use.

A water turbine is a rotary machine that converts kinetic energy and potential energy of water into mechanical work.

Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now, they are mostly used for electric power generation.Water turbines are mostly found in dams to generate electric power from water potential energy.

A refrigerated container or reefer is an intermodal container (shipping container) used in intermodal freight transport that is capable of refrigeration for the transportation of temperature-sensitive, perishable cargo. These containers are a critical component of the cold chain, the supply chain that preserves goods like fruits, vegetables, meat, and pharmaceuticals at a specific low temperature.

While a reefer has an integral refrigeration unit, it relies on external power from electrical power points (“reefer points”) at a land-based site, a container ship, or on a quay. When being transported over the road on a trailer or over a rail wagon, it can be powered from a diesel-powered generator ("gen set") that attaches to the container during road journeys. Refrigerated containers are capable of maintaining a constant internal temperature ranging from −65 °C (−85 °F) up to 40 °C (104 °F).

A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos employed electromagnets for self-starting by using residual magnetic field left in the iron cores of electromagnets (i.e. field coils). If a dynamo were never run before, it was usual to use a separate battery to excite or flash the field of the electromagnets to enable self-starting. Dynamos were the first practical electrical generators capable of delivering power for industry, and the foundation upon which many other later electric-power conversion devices were based, including the electric motor, the alternating-current alternator, and the rotary converter.

Today, the simpler and more reliable alternator dominates large scale power generation, for efficiency, reliability and cost reasons. A dynamo has the disadvantages of a mechanical commutator. Also, converting alternating to direct current using rectifiers (such as vacuum tubes or more recently via solid state technology) is effective and usually economical.

A homopolar generator is a DC electrical generator comprising an electrically conductive disc or cylinder rotating in a plane perpendicular to a uniform static magnetic field. A potential difference is created between the center of the disc and the rim (or ends of the cylinder) with an electrical polarity that depends on the direction of rotation and the orientation of the field. It is also known as a unipolar generator, acyclic generator, disk dynamo, or Faraday disc. The voltage is typically low, on the order of a few volts in the case of small demonstration models, but large research generators can produce hundreds of volts, and some systems have multiple generators in series to produce an even larger voltage. They are unusual in that they can source tremendous electric current, some more than a million amperes, because the homopolar generator can be made to have very low internal resistance. Also, the homopolar generator is unique in that no other rotary electric machine can produce DC without using rectifiers or commutators.

An alternator (or synchronous generator) is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field with a stationary armature. Occasionally, a linear alternator or a rotating armature with a stationary magnetic field is used. In principle, any AC electrical generator can be called an alternator, but usually, the term refers to small rotating machines driven by automotive and other internal combustion engines.

An alternator that uses a permanent magnet for its magnetic field is called a magneto. Alternators in power stations driven by steam turbines are called turbo-alternators. Large 50 or 60 Hz three-phase alternators in power plants generate most of the world's electric power, which is distributed by electric power grids.

A turbine–electric transmission, or turbine–electric powertrain, system includes a turboshaft gas turbine connected to an electrical generator, creating electricity that powers electric traction motors. No clutch is required.

Turbine–electric transmissions are used to drive both gas turbine locomotives (rarely) and warships.

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that couples a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) with one or more electric engines into a combined propulsion system. The presence of the electric powertrain, which has inherently better energy conversion efficiency, is intended to achieve either better fuel economy or better acceleration performance than a conventional vehicle. There is a variety of HEV types and the degree to which each functions as an electric vehicle (EV) also varies. The most common form of HEV is hybrid electric passenger cars, although hybrid electric trucks (pickups, tow trucks and tractors), buses, motorboats, and aircraft also exist.

Modern HEVs use energy recovery technologies such as motor–generator units and regenerative braking to recycle the vehicle's kinetic energy to electric energy via an alternator, which is stored in a battery pack or a supercapacitor. Some varieties of HEV use an internal combustion engine to directly drive an electrical generator, which either recharges the vehicle's batteries or directly powers the electric traction motors; this combination is known as a range extender. Many HEVs reduce idle emissions by temporarily shutting down the combustion engine at idle (such as when waiting at the traffic light) and restarting it when needed; this is known as a start-stop system. A hybrid-electric system produces less tailpipe emissions than a comparably sized petrol engine vehicle since the hybrid's petrol engine usually has smaller displacement and thus lower fuel consumption than that of a conventional petrol-powered vehicle. If the engine is not used to drive the car directly, it can be geared to run at maximum efficiency, further improving fuel economy.

In electromagnetism, Faraday's law of induction describes how a changing magnetic field can induce an electric current in a circuit. This phenomenon, known as electromagnetic induction, is the fundamental operating principle of transformers, inductors, and many types of electric motors, generators and solenoids.

Faraday's law is used in the literature to refer to two closely related but physically distinct statements. One is the Maxwell–Faraday equation, one of Maxwell's equations, which states that a time-varying magnetic field is always accompanied by a circulating electric field. This law applies to the fields themselves and does not require the presence of a physical circuit.

A hydraulic motor is a mechanical actuator that converts hydraulic pressure and flow into torque and angular displacement (rotation). The hydraulic motor is the rotary counterpart of the hydraulic cylinder as a linear actuator. Most broadly, the category of devices called hydraulic motors has sometimes included those that run on hydropower (namely, water engines and water motors) but in today's terminology the name usually refers more specifically to motors that use hydraulic fluid as part of closed hydraulic circuits in modern hydraulic machinery.

Conceptually, a hydraulic motor should be interchangeable with a hydraulic pump because it performs the opposite function – similar to the way a DC electric motor is theoretically interchangeable with a DC electrical generator. However, many hydraulic pumps cannot be used as hydraulic motors because they cannot be backdriven. Also, a hydraulic motor is usually designed for working pressure at both sides of the motor, whereas most hydraulic pumps rely on low pressure provided from the reservoir at the input side and would leak fluid when abused as a motor.

An engine–generator is the combination of an electrical generator and an engine (prime mover) mounted together to form a single piece of equipment. This combination is also called an engine–generator set or a gen-set. In many contexts, the engine is taken for granted and the combined unit is simply called a generator. An engine–generator may be a fixed installation, part of a vehicle, or made small enough to be portable.

Atlas Copco Group (Copco from Compagnie Pneumatique Commerciale) is a Swedish multinational industrial company. It manufactures compressors, vacuum equipment, pumps, generators, assembly tools, quality assurance equipment and other products and systems for industrial applications and mobile power generation. The products are sold in around 180 countries.

The company was founded in 1873 in Stockholm. By the end of 2024, the number of employees was around 55,000 and the yearly revenue 177 billion kr. Atlas Copco is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange, and its A and B classes of shares are both constituents of the OMXS30 index. The head office is in Nacka, near central Stockholm, on a site where the main factory of the company used to be located.

A field coil is an electromagnet used to generate a magnetic field in an electro-magnetic machine, typically a rotating electrical machine such as a motor or generator. It consists of a coil of wire through which the field current flows.

In a rotating machine, the field coils are wound on an iron magnetic core which guides the magnetic field lines. The magnetic core is in two parts; a stator which is stationary, and a rotor, which rotates within it. The magnetic field lines pass in a continuous loop or magnetic circuit from the stator through the rotor and back through the stator again. The field coils may be on the stator or on the rotor.