Some countries produce too much electricity at a certain period of the year, and have to pay another country to get rid of their extra own unconsumed electricity. Why can’t a power plant produce more electricity than consumed, what’s the physical obstacle to do so?
Also, what will the receiving country do if this surplus of electricity is again not consumed entirely?
In: 60
Countries do share electricity, but the problem is that you have to use electricity the exact instant it is made. Pretty much every light bulb and TV runs on electricity that was manufactured only a fraction of a second beforehand.
The only way to ‘save up’ extra electricity so it can be used at a different time is with batteries. A battery for an entire country would be too expensive to make.
You could also ask the question: Why are batteries so much more expensive than power plants? One reason is because of the nature of what they do. A battery is like a bucket that holds electricity. A power plant is like a hose that shoots fast-moving electricity. Now, if you had to provide a city with water for a month, what would be easier: Building a bucket to hold all the water that millions of people and businesses use in a month (it would be larger than dozens of skyscrapers), or making a powerful hose?
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