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?
In: Technology
Generators on the grid respond to frequency much like a car’s cruise control responds to speed. If the frequency begins to increase (more generation than load), the generators will collectively ease up off their throttle and reduce power to match. If frequency decreases (more load than generation), the generators will collectively apply more throttle to increase power to match. This is known as ‘governor response’ and its how the grid naturally responds to match load over a short duration (seconds, minutes) – with the assumption that the online generation has enough available capacity to meet the changing load.
In the longer term (hours), if the available capacity of the online generation cannot meet the demand, offline generators will need to be started and connected to the grid.
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