I was thinking on the drive home for work that the ever increasing number of electric vehicles will likely mean an increasing demand on the energy infrastructure’s of countries.
But what is actually happening in the electricity grid if supply can’t meet demand? Is it simply the devices furthest away from the generation of power won’t receive current?
Whilst this is ELI5, I also wouldn’t mind a slightly more technical answer. Thanks!
In: 9
Electricity for the grid is generated on demand. Somewhere there’s an electric motor being spun that generates the electricity that ultimately makes it to your wall socket. That may be for the turbine in a hyro plant, nuclear plant, coal plant, or whatever, but there’s an electric motor (generator) turning and devices are consuming it at an equal rate.
In fact, when you turn on a light bulb, there’s a very vey very small drop in the power on the grid, and those generators need to run just a little harder to compensate. This of course happens on a massive scale, so it’s all averages out over thousands of homes and dozens of generators, but that’s the basic concept.
At a certain point, those generators just can’t meet demand. Maybe it’s the limit of the available source of power (water, steam, wind, etc), but in that scenario, there’s insufficient power generated to meet demand. And thus you get brownouts, or in worse case, blackouts. And that affects everyone connected, not just those further away.
There *are* instances of battery stored power on the grid, but those are rare.
Latest Answers