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
Lower and excess generation are both bad for the grid. It changes the frequency the system operates and frequency is how you change the rotation of an electric motor without changing anything else. From elevators to milling machines they all expect a fixed frequency for a smooth and dependable operation.
Yet it happens, especially with renewable power plants since you cannot dictate sun about how much it will show its face ot how much wind you may get. System operators continuously monitor the grid and give some plants to power up or down. Those plants, even if they are operated privately, are responsible for responding to system operator’s commands. All for a fee of course. I wrote some software for plant operations where they can monitor those commands.
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