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
Electricity, which is a form of energy, can be stored as a different form of energy. In New Jersey, there are 2 sites, I’m not sure if they are still in use, I visited them as a teenager back in the 80’s. During low demand hours (overnight), excess electricity is used to pump water from a lower reservoir into an upper reservoir where it is stored as potential energy. During high demand hours (during the day) they can release the water to the lower reservoir and turning a generator creating electricity to meet the increased demand. When demand goes down the cycle starts over. Like I said, not sure if they are still in use, but it was a relatively simple solution. There may be more efficient ways if doing it now.
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