Electromotive force, or emf,
is the term we use to describe anything which behaves like an electrical pump. Batteries, generators, thermoelectric devices, solar cells, and piezoelectric crystals all do the same job in an electrical circuit: they pick conduction charges up at points of low potential energy and lift them up to high potential energy. If we imagine that current is positive charge in motion, then an emf pumps the current from low voltage up to high voltage.
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