I have heard that electricity comes directly from powerplants to our homes. No storage or battery of any kind. If I turn on an extra light, how does the powerplant adjust for such a small change in the demand? Does that mean every other device that is turned on and getting electricity from this powerplant gets a little less energy to compensate for my light?
In: 24
>Does that mean every other device that is turned on and getting electricity from this powerplant gets a little less energy to compensate for my light?
Initially yes, however there are millions of electrical devices connected to the grid and they switch on and off every second so chances are, at the same time you turn on your light, someone else turns off their light. If for whatever reason you turn on your light and nobody else turns off theirs, then the total resistance on the grid increases which reduces the amount of power that every device on the grid gets. Most devices are able to tolerate a small drop in power so this isn’t really noticeable.
If the drop in power starts getting more noticeable then the grid will ask powerplants to increase output to compensate.
Latest Answers