By Dalton Caley

Few people turn on a living room lamp and ponder how it can turn on. Not many consider the complex path taken by the power that propels nearly every appliance and system you use during the day to brew your morning coffee, keep your home comfy, and entertain you with those dog and cat social media videos on your phone and desktop.

Most electric distribution co-ops purchase electricity from a generation and transmission (G&T) cooperative that owns and maintains the transmission equipment carrying electricity to your community (your local electric co-op delivers it to homes and businesses in your town). Wabash Valley Power Alliance and Hoosier Energy are the generation and transmission cooperatives that serve electric distribution co-ops in Indiana.

The path that electricity takes to power your day is an interesting one. See the information to the right.

It’s also interesting to note that the electricity you are using now was just recently produced — energy is consumed as it is used, in real time. 

So now that you know how energy is produced, the next time you turn on a lamp in your home you, too, will feel enlightened!

DALTON CALEY is the Energy Advisor at Kosciusko REMC in Warsaw, Ind.

How electricity is produced