How do power plants “know” the exact amount of energy that is in demand at a current moment by the millions of consumers within its distribution network since they must produce near this amount of energy (either too much or too little energy being pumped into the grid in comparison to the energy demand has negative consequences, if I understand correctly?)
Is there some sort of signaling system that can tell how much power is being drawn at a exact moment or will be drawn one second/minute into the future?
What happens if too much energy is produced at a current moment compared to the demand?
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They don’t produce exact actually…For natural gas powered generators they can ramp up and down quickly and for nuclear generators for example, ramping up and down takes a long time so they normally tend to output similar level of powers throughout the day. For wind farms it is even worse – they can’t really control the wind so they can’t control the amount generated.
Between grids electricity can be bought or sold (each grid is managed by an Independent System Operator), ISOs typically have power forecast models to forecast the consumption but that is not 100% accurate all the time, power trading is actually a serious trading business among some of the largest commodities players…and sometimes if too much power is generated that are not needed, the generators are willing to pay whoever that could consume that electricity. Sometimes when unexpected events happen (natural disasters for example could take down power lines or generators) and power lines become congested whoever owns the capacity to flow electricity to a much needed area could make millions of USD in a day.
Hope that helps.
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