Getting power from the power lines to your factory isn't necessarily as easy as just running the wire from one to the other. There are things that need to happen for the power to safely get from the power lines to your factory. One of those things is to have a transformer wired into your system. What is an industrial transformer and why do you need to have one?

Transformer

Sadly, the transformers that you need for your power needs aren't going to do any tricks like turning into giant robots that take you for a ride around town. Instead, what they do is to transform the voltage of the electricity so that it is either higher or lower than what the input is. For example, if your nearest electrical lines are high power lines, they may carry an extremely high voltage that will not work for you. These numbers aren't the precise numbers, but they will work for this example. The high voltage line may carry power at 50 volts. However, you need to have 5 volts running into your factory to power your machinery. You have to have that 50 volts somehow changed down to 5 volts. That's where a transformer come in. 

How a Transformer Works

The way that a transformer works is that the incoming power goes into a pole that is wrapped in wire. Next to that pole, is another pole that is wrapped in fewer coils. Since the pole has fewer wraps, it carries less voltage. A transformer may have several of these poles that are located near each other so that the power steps down from the 50 volts to the 5 volts safely. None of the poles inside the transformer are going to touch, they are just going to be close enough to each other that they do what they need to. They don't need to touch because of the way that electromagnetism works. If any of the machines in your factory need to have a higher voltage, you can set up a smaller transformer that will turn the voltage back up for that particular machine so that it will have the amount of power that it needs. 

Transformers are a necessary part of any electrical system. You see them on power lines out and about. You can also see them around factories, or other places that are going to need to use them to make sure that they have a good power draw.