how does consuming less power helps to over come electricity shortage, is it being stored in chemical form?

3 Comments

1. brighton electric says:

   May 8, 2008 at 12:44 am

   brighton electrician

   Energy is consumed in an electrical system by current traveling across a voltage drop. The more stuff you plug in, the more current is drawn, current that travels from one prong of the outlet to the other. Power plants are essentially designed to handle the load in real-time, so if less power is consumed (more things off and unplugged), the generators at the plant won’t work so hard. Electricity shortage results from too much current (essentially proportional to power) is demanded by people plugging too much stuff in; the generators can’t work hard enough to supply the demand. In the case of any coal, oil, gas, etc. plants, it is stored in chemical form (in the oil, gas, etc.). Electricity produce by power plants is never stored in electrical form (I’m not sure if this is totally the case with new things like wind, solar, etc. power). As for how the power plants keep up with the demand, they use some magical control systems, but I couldn’t tell you details about these, not my field.
2. sussex electrics says:

   May 10, 2008 at 8:08 am

   brighton electrics

   There is less energy being used to generate electricity if no one is using it because it is easier to turn the generator if there is only a small load. there are still losses that consume some energy. But not using energy for one day will help save resources for another day.
3. brighton electrical says:

   May 11, 2008 at 12:08 pm

   brighton electrics

   Electric power is not stored, in any form. It is produced as it is needed. so if you use less power, less has to be produced, and therefore less oil or coal is used for that production.

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