Incredible Electric Facts

As well as providing you with the best possible service when it comes to your energy, this month we thought we’d also give you a few fun facts about our good old friend electricity.

1. Did you know that 50 trillion to 200 trillion watts of heat energy is released by a hurricane. This is equivalent to the energy released by exploding a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes. 

2. An electric eel is basically a living battery. They have an organ that generates electricity that can stun their prey and keep predators away and also have muscle cells stacked on top of each other that are used to generate a current.

3. Newcastle (where our headquarters are based) had the first street lit by electricity! Mosley Street was the first street in the world to be lit by electricity on 3rd February 1879. 

4. Getting hit by lightning can leave strange markings on the skin. If you’re lucky enough to survive being hit by lightning, your skin may be scarred with a lightning bolt pattern across where you were hit.

5. An average thunderstorm could power up to 200,000 homes. Lightning can also heat the air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5 times hotter than the surface of the sun).

6. Water is the reason humans get electric shocks. Our bodies are made up of 60% water making us fantastic conductors of electricity. When coming in contact with it, electricity heads straight to the water flowing through the body which results in an electric shock. 

7. Scholars believe that ancient Egyptians were using electric lamps to light their way. In freshly-opened Egyptian tombs, there was no soot or smoke residue which has led historians to believe they were using electricity to light and navigate the dark crypts. 

8. Electricity can be made from cheese! To make Beaufort cheese, there is a process of adding bacteria to whey which turns into biogas. This gas is fed through an engine heating water to then generate electricity. 

9. Static electricity allows geckos to stick to walls. Through their toe pads, static electricity charges between its toe and the wall’s surface allowing them to stick to walls. 

10.  Your brain could power a lightbulb. Nerve cells in the brain communicate by tiny pulses of electricity. Together, the power generated by 86 billion neurons in the brain could power a low-wattage light bulb. 

Have you got any more facts to share? Drop us a message on our social media channels to get your facts added to our list.