My assumption is that electrical providers own their generators. So when they generate electricity, it goes out into this massive repository that is the electrical grid and then all consumers take at will from it.
So how do electrical providers keep track of “their” electricity and who is consuming it? Electrical production has to meet demand in real time so how do providers know who is responsible for generating how much at any given moment?
And how do the companies that own the power lines factor into this? Are they at all related to the power generation companies or are the latter just customers?
In: Engineering
In basic terms, producers guess how much they can generate and how much it will cost to generate, then decide how much they produce and for what price. They are business entities, profit is the key.
Market operator guesses how much hourly energy will be needed tomorrow and asks producers about their prices and amount and then sets prices for every hour for tomorrow. Producers are responsible providing that energy. They can produce that or buy from other producers, at the end of the day all that matters if energy provided to line.
Tomorrow comes and everything just works. This is all good but what happens if there is a concert and more energy needed, or your office building is closed and now we have more energy than needed. Every power switch including the one in your houses effect the power need and it needs to be balanced, realtime.
Good thing is market operator also monitors usage and tell some producers to increase or decrease production. They do because they are also paid for that too. Yes sometime they are paid not to produce, because all that matters if the balance.
I am software developer working in a company that develops solutions for energy sector and this is how electric grid works in my humble knowledge on the subject. If I misrepresented something please feel free to correct me.
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