what happens to excess electricity produced on the grid

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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?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I did a quick study of Dinorwig Power Station in the UK for a university module. It’s a fascinating arrangement with two reservoirs, one 100m higher than the other, to allow for extremely quick power generation in the event of power ‘shortages’ by allowing water from the upper reservoir to drop to the lower, spinning a turbine, and pumping water back to the upper reservoir during off-peak hours where it’s cheaper for it to do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

The National Grid in the UK will have several of these surge power stations (although of differing types of power generation) to balance the needs of the nation.

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