howardwheeler wrote:
I don't doubt what any of you are saying, but I guess I don't quite understand the analogies. I can get the idea of the plug having potential but nothing flowing and the shower head having the potential to blast water if it's ever turned on. But these examples seem more focused on the valves at the end of a chain of delivery, one electrical and the other water. But I guess it's electric generation that I don't understand, because with the sun hitting the solar panels we aren't dealing with the shower head but rather the main pumping station or not the plug but the hydroelectric turbines at the dam. We are at the source of generation. Does the panel just shut off? It seems like it will be generating electricity that disappears. Again, I don't doubt your statements I just want to have my understanding enlightened. I'm sure I just don't have the right perspective. But I'd like to get it.
Electricity is the flow of electrons. The sun knocks them loose from atoms and they subsequently flow down the wires, however if there is no demand for this flow it "backs up" in the wires. So in short, the panels only make as many electrons as can leave (and return) through the wires.
So going with the water analogy, the panels produce "pressure" but without an open valve there is no flow.
