What are power transformers

Power transformers are one of the key components in the electric distribution grid.

Electricity is generated at power stations (hydroelectric, coal, solar). That's easy.

The tough part is (and that's not commonly understood) - its extremely hard to store electricity in large quantities. In fact, it's downright impossible.

Unlike water, fuel or food - storing electricity in large quantities (enough to supply a town for a week, for example) is simply not economical. Yes, batteries and capacitors do just that, but nothing close to the relative quantities. The best electric car can do on a charge barely half a tank of gas. And it uses a very, very heavy set of batteries to store that charge.

So the tough reality is that electricity needs to be continually generated, day and night, and continually be supplied to its consumers. If the consumers do not use the generated electricity, the energy used to create it has gone to waste - again, because there's no known way to store electricity for the time when the consumer needs it.

Think of one of those portable generators. You fill it with fuel, start it and it promptly starts converting fuel to electricity, whether you plug an appliance to it or not. See my point?

Now, since electricity can't be stored efficiently, it needs to be continually transported to (often) great distances. That's the power lines hanging on poles everywhere.

That's where power transformers come in. For physical reasons, the most efficient way to transport electricity is for it to be at the highest possible voltage. The higher the voltage, the less electricity is wasted in the distribution grid.

Voltage, for the purpose of this blog, is just like water pressure. So lets just say that the higher the pressure, the less waste in the electric 'pipe'.

Power transformers convert one voltage for another. So there are (huge) power transformers to convert the generator voltage to high voltage, ready to be transported. High voltage means hundreds of thousands of volts (400,000 volts is common). Now, on the other end, power transformers convert that voltage down back to the consumer voltage - commonly 110v, 220v.

So there, power transformers are the 'pressure converters' from low voltage to high voltage and back to low. And they are critical in any power grid.

Transformers are everywhere, all around us. Wall adapters, chargers, inside every power supply. They all convert voltages (110v, 220v) to whatever voltage is needed by the electronic circuitry (5v, 9volts etc).
Power transformers differ from a wall wart mainly in that they deal with huge quantities of electricity compared to their dwarf sibling. So they need to be a lot more efficient and they are much, much more expensive.

For example, they need to be liquid cooled, and they use a special transformer oil for that.

And they are a dangerous device to deal with, because of the high voltages involved. Thus they are confined to cages and locked rooms and are serviced and maintained by professionals only.

Megawatt Transformers offers service and maintenance to power transformers. We have a power transformers analysis lab, we offer transformer oil analysis treatment and hold a large inventory of spare parts.

We also offer power transformer recycling, and sell the recycled cores. We are the first EPA approved power transformer recycling plant in Israel.