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?
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If you increase load, the frequency of the grid decreases a bit, and power plants will increase power output to keep the overall grid at the right frequency(within some tolerance). They won’t notice a difference from one light, it will just take some more energy stored in the inertia of the spinning turbines.
Though there are some battery storage facilities in some places that actively react to smooth out short term fluctuations in power usage.
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