How is electric energy stored and distributed by electric companies?
In: Technology
Electric energy storage is not a thing, at grid scale. Pumped hydro is probably the closest thing, but it’s a tiny fraction of grid scale. Even giant Tesla battery stations are only for small scale fluctuations.
The electric grid is distributed by a grid of wires, at very high voltages. Transformers make the power you actually use, but it’s all made and used in real time. Transformers are tuned to be slightly less efficient as demand drops, turning more of the input power into heat. But mostly it’s automated computer control and many diligent workers on the job 24 hours a day that maintain the balance. They call power plants and tell them to make more or less power so that the power needed exactly matches the power produced. If they can’t do that, the only other choice is to shed load, and that causes a blackout. In the worst case, they drop the whole grid, as the ERCOT operators did in Texas last winter, and all the power is off on the whole grid until the balance can be reestablished.
Latest Answers