Quote:
Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0
I’m missing your point when you say lost.
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I'm not an electrical engineer, but I've read that there is a certain amount of power required to keep the grid active. At night the consumption of that power can fall below that minimum and is somehow dumped. If the power isn't being consumed by a consumer, it is consumed by the grid, and effectively "lost" as in it doesn't power anything else. Since I'm no expert though I could be completely off in my understanding.
There are examples of this in the production of electricity, although not exactly the same thing. For example, in some cases of hydroelectric power, the generators required to provide electricity during the day to the grid may not be needed at night. Rather than turn the generators off, they are used for another purpose. For example, in Georgia, Lake Oconee is a power generating lake and Lake Sinclair (downstream) is basically "battery storage". Each night, the excess power generation is used to pump water from Lake Sinclair back into Lake Oconee, then that water is reused to power the turbines during peak times. Lake Sinclair, as result, has a low and high "tide" every day as the water is pumped out then flowed back in.