– If the electrical grid overproduces on electricity, what happens to that excess?
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The grid will being to produce electricity at the wrong frequency. Electricity is made by spinning turbines (with the exception of solar). Wind, steam, or water spins a turbine, which spins a magnet in a generator to “push” electricity around the grid. The generator is supposed to spin at a certain rate (60 Hz in the US), because electrical devices are designed to work with electricity that oscillates at that rate. If there is a lot of electricity being used, the generator can’t push hard enough to spin at 60 Hz, so it slows down. If there isn’t much electricity being used, the generator pushes too hard and spins too fast. Either way is bad, as electrical devices expect 60 Hz electricity. So, people running the electrical grid try to keep it balanced. The balance doesn’t have to perfect, as if the electricity slows down to 59.99 Hz, that’s not a big deal, but a big imbalance would be bad. So, if it’s getting out of balance, there can be things like flywheels that store or release some energy to keep it balanced, or they’ll turn off or on some generators to reduce or increase the amount of energy created, or do lots of other things to keep the produced amount matching the used amount of electricity.
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