Study of Using Virtual Reality Technology to Simulate the Generation of Electrical Power from Different Sources

Virtual reality (VR) is one of the most common technologies nowadays, which make a virtual environment exactly similar to the real environment. The purpose behind this is to test several issues (designing or manufacturing), this lead to reduce the cost and risk especially in the mass manufacturing sector. VR involved two basic conditions, the hardware part which represented by glasses, cameras, sensors and computers, while the software part is represented by the cods and program language. This technology is used here to test and simulate the process of generating electrical energy from several sources. The power sources were divided into two parts; the basic sources that generate large amounts of electrical power that cannot be dispensed with, such as hydroelectric stations that depend on waterfalls, thermal stations that depend on various types of fuels, as well as nuclear stations that depend on special radioactive fuel. The variables of each main source that directly affect the process of generating electrical power were identified, and each of these variables was given a specific symbol when writing the VR program. But, at present, this research is only to link VR technology to the process of generating electrical power. While, the second part of sources are secondary or auxiliary sources, which cannot be fully dependent upon to suffice with generating electrical power (solar and wind energy which were discussed briefly). In order to achieve the main purpose of using VR technology, we assumed a certain cost for establishing a hydroelectric power station. With a simple calculation process, it can be proven that this technology can reduce the cost of establishing the station to a third of the expected value after eliminating the need for design and installation, this may be repeated two, three or four times (if VR technology is not used), which means moving the equipment and replacing it two, three or four times. Therefore, the directly appropriate selection of this equipment will reduce the cost to a third (perhaps a half or a quarter depending on the repetition times).