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
Short version: yes, in fact they do.
Key points: the voltage is not exactly 110V (or 230V, or whatever the label says in your area). Usually it varies several percent either side.
A lot of appliances vary their power consumption depending on the voltage. Old style light bulbs, water heaters, ovens, toasters – if the voltage goes up a bit, they draw more power; down, they draw less.
So, if the power stations are producing slightly “too much” power, your voltage will be a bit higher, and this will make some appliances take a bit of extra power as a result. If it goes too high, a generator somewhere will get turned down a bit to bring it down. Same if there isn’t enough: the voltage drops, some appliances use less, and generators might turn up their output to bring it up again.
If there isn’t enough power, it can drop too far and stay low, called a “brownout” – you’ll often see the lights go dim. In extreme cases, power gets cut off – it’s bad to run devices expecting 230V on 100V, it’s better to cut the power entirely.
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