eli5: how do electric companies deal with different demands of electric power?

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As far as I know the electric power is produced „fresh“ and transported everywhere via wires. If I turn on a light in my house the demand goes slightly up. Does the power plant then automatically produce more electric power? Or are there huge batteries somewhere that deal with the different demands?

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12 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The grid can’t respond instantly to every change in demand. It’s not unusual for the voltage to fluctuate by 10 volts over any given day. So when you turn on the light in your house, everybody else gets a bit less, and their lights dim a bit. You can really notice this as the dryer turns on. When the voltage starts dropping too low, extra power plants will be brought online. Where I live, demand drops in the evening, and you can see every day when one of the plants goes offline and the lights dim at exactly 10pm every night.

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