Let us start with a famous name, and see what the record says. Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity. People knew about electrical forces for more than a thousand years. Franklin’s experiment showed the connection between lightning and electricity. The word is old too. “Electricity” comes from “elektron,” the Greek word for amber. Lightning happens when electric charge builds up in a storm cloud. Then it jumps to the ground. As of November 2026, there can be as many as 2,000 thunderstorms across the globe at any given moment. Franklin showed that lightning is electricity. That is what his experiment showed.

So what is electricity made of? Atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Outer electrons have a weaker pull toward the protons. They can move from one atom to another. These shifting electrons are what we call electricity. Electricity involves electrons moving from place to place through conductors. Metals let electricity flow through them easily. Glass, rubber, wood and plastic do not. Rubbing can move electrons from one thing to another. That is how static electricity starts. Electric charges that are alike push each other apart. Electricity is called an energy carrier. It can be converted to other forms of energy such as mechanical energy or heat.

Faraday is the next name in our story. Let us see what he did. In 1826, Michael Faraday founded the Christmas Lectures for young people at the Royal Institution. Then, in 1831, he made a discovery. Power generation depends on it. Moving a magnet through a coil of wire can make electricity flow in the wire. Metals such as copper and aluminum have loosely held electrons. Moving a magnet around a coil of wire pushes the electrons in the wire. That creates an electric current. Most electricity generation is from generators based on his discovery. A generator turns the energy of motion into electricity.

The electricity we use is a secondary energy source. It is made by converting primary sources like coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar and wind energy. In a turbine generator, a moving fluid pushes blades on a rotor shaft. The fluid can be water, steam, combustion gases or air. The spinning shaft turns a generator. Wind can spin the blades of a wind turbine. Wind is caused in part by the sun heating the air unevenly. Moving water can spin a turbine too. Hydropower uses the water cycle to make electricity. The water is not reduced or eliminated in the process. Solar panels can use sunlight to make electricity.

Before electricity became widely available, candles, whale oil lamps and kerosene lamps provided light. Many people say Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. In fact, he was not the inventor of the light bulb. He was the inventor of the first effective and commercially viable one. On 1 November 1879, he first patented his carbon-filament lamp. His laboratory had got a glowing carbonized thread that lasted more than fourteen hours. In 1882, Edison’s Pearl Street Station in New York City began sending out electricity. It was designed to run up to 1,400 lamps continuously. It served an area of about one square mile.

How does electricity reach a home today? Power lines carry it over long distances. From a substation, smaller, lower-voltage lines bring electricity to neighborhoods and homes. The U.S. grid in the Lower 48 states has three main interconnections. They are Eastern, Western, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). In 2018 through 2022, U.S. electricity transmission and distribution losses averaged about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed. That is the figure as of November 2026. For the grid to stay stable, the amount of electricity supplied must match the electricity demanded. If they fall out of balance, local or even widespread blackouts can happen.

Words to know

• amber: hard golden resin
• electrons: tiny moving charges
• generator: makes electricity
• hydropower: water power
• interconnections: linked grids