Since, and unless electricity has properties I’m not aware of, it’s not possible for electric power plants to produce only and EXACTLY the amount of electricity being drawn at an given time, and not having enough electricity for everyone is a VERY bad thing, I’m assuming the power plants produce enough electricity to meet a predicted average need plus a little extra margin. So, if this understanding is correct, where does that little extra margin go? And what kind of margin are we talking about?
In: Engineering
The electric company I worked for had a “Power Marketing” department. Basically like a mini stock exchange except they bought and sold electricity and electricity options. As a lowly clerical work filing, I’d see all the contracts. Instant buys for x amount, long term options for a year, you name it. At least in the US everything is pretty much interconnected aside from Texas.
Same for natural gas, for that it could be for anywhere in the world and I was working smack dab in the middle of the US so obviously it’d have to come by ship and then transported. Those were usually longer term and projecting what would be needed so say x amount every z whatever (usually monthly).
So party A has too much, party B has two little, they agree on a price and have broiler plate contracts where they just fill in dates and amounts and legal reviews, they get signed and then the electric is allowed to the buyers power network.
I’m sure there’s a whole lot of details and things I’m missing but that’s the jist of it.
Bonus facts: you had to have a serious background check to even file papers there. Then the power marketing dept and the dispatch dept you still had to be supervised. Needed a keycard to get past the front desk, even regular suppliers for stuff like coffee. My husband (then boyfriend had a dinged up old car and would occasionally pick me up in the back parking lot and got asked more than once what he was doing there. Ironically he made twice the money I did lol. People would just see strange guy goofing around on his phone and ask what was up. Since I did oodles of random clerical work most people know me and let him be. Though I did have once where I was called and told “there’s this guy in the back lot says his name is x and he’s here to pick you up in a few minutes?”… “yeah, that’s my boyfriend he’s fine!”.
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