Last edited Mon Apr 15, 2019, 02:03 PM - Edit history (1)
in, for example, the Eastern Interconnection (2/3 of the U.S.), the electric power grid is one humongous monster electrical-mechanical "machine" operating as one entity in synchronism where every moment, generation matches load (+ transmission and distribution line losses) almost exactly every second and minute. If not -- adjustments are automatically made to quickly restore the balance. If those adjustments aren't enough, soon enough, and the dispatchers can't do something pretty quickly, a lot of shit happens big time.
So there is no wasted electricity (other than the line losses) in the grid. That's not coming from some chest-thumping utility guy bragging, it's just the physics of the situation.
Yes, there's a ton of wasted energy in making the electricity (converting the energy content in nuclear and fossil fuels into electricity), and of course a ton wasted by customer devices. But not in the grid itself (again other than line losses)
The Eastern Interconnection is the entire eastern 2/3 of the U.S. (ends at the Rocky Mountains), EXcluding the Texas Interconnection, which is its own monster synchronous machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Interconnection
Many decades ago, I once worked for a place that generated a ton of electrical power (I'll just say greater than 100 MW) and energy. But the local utility couldn't use it because our generation was intermittent and unpredictable, and anyway some heavy duty transmission would have to have been built out to this unimaginably remote location.
So what happened to all that electricity that nobody wanted?
It went to a huge huge resistor in a big water-filled cooling tank. The hot water produced went to a cooling tower that emitted a monster cloud of water vapor that could be seen tens of miles away.
But I've never heard of an electric utility that has something like that! I don't think wind farms or solar farms do anything like this either.
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