For example: if a neighbourhood loses power, what happens to the power that the neighbourhood was consuming immediately beforehand?
Is there a sudden excess of power in other places near that neighbourhood?
In: Technology
If the load decreases the result is the load on all generators is reduced a bit. They will spin a bit faster and as a result the frequency of the AC increase. The voltage can change a bit too. A neighborhood is a very small part of a power grid. Here is a map of how large power interconnected power gids are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_synchronous_grid#/media/File:Wide_area_synchronous_grid_(Eurasia,_Mediterranean).png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_synchronous_grid#/media/File:Wide_area_synchronous_grid_(Eurasia,_Mediterranean).png)
The voltage in outlets is typically nominal voltage +- some percentage. US use 120 +-5% which is 114 V to 126V and devices need to handle that. In EU it is 230V +10% -6% which is 253 to 216V, the reason for the odd range is UK nominal voltage was 240V +-5% so when a common standard was set it covered both UK and the rest of Europe’s voltage.
There are frequency standards like that to, often with the requirement that the total error over24-hour periods are very low
The frequency and voltage are controlled by adjusting or even adding and removing power generation resources from the grid. The power source of a generator can be used to change the output in some systems quickly like gas turbines, and hydroelectric but steam-based systems like coal and nuclear change quite slowly. Grid storage with batteries can change the output even faster. So active regulation is used to keep the the power grid at the right voltage and frequency.
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