[stevio]

If we learn to curb our electrically needs to when the winds blows we’d be fine. Ain’t gonna happen. Power plants produce energy whether it’s used or not.

[STONEWALLS]

“If we learn to curb our electrically needs to when the winds blows we’d be fine. Ain’t gonna happen.”

yep...here in the South, peak demand occurs during the hottest part of the day...and that’s often when the wind quits blowing.

[Pontiac]

Power plants produce energy whether it’s used or not.

Not true.

Every electric power producer has large power plants that run almost all of the time called Base Load plants.

Then they have medium sized plants that increase or decrease power production to meet rising or falling demand called Load Following plants.

Then there are plants that are started up only when demand is at its greatest called Peaking Plants. Some of these are gas turbine plants that are fully automated and can be started remotely from a Systems Operation Center.

It would be economically wasteful to generate power that was not used and it would cause destructive imbalances in the distribution system.

[Wonder Warthog]

"If we learn to curb our electrically needs to when the winds blows we’d be fine. Ain’t gonna happen. Power plants produce energy whether it’s used or not."

Actually, there "is" a way to solve the problem. It's called the "hydrogen economy" and it is the answer to using energy sources with inherent variability. It is also a pretty good way to handle the long distance transmission problem as well.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

If we learn to curb our electrically needs to when the winds blows we’d be fine. Ain’t gonna happen. Power plants produce energy whether it’s used or not.

When I lived in Alabama the biggest power demand was on hot humid days.....when all the air conditioners were operating. And that was when the wind wasn't blowing.

[thackney]

Power plants produce energy whether it’s used or not.

No, that is not the way it works. Keeping nuclear reaction and quantum physics for another discussion, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. Chemical energy (fuels) can be burned to make heat to turn turbines to turn generators to make electricity. But the electricity does just pour out and get stored on the lines or vanish if not used. In electrical grids, generation will equal loads plus loss, always. When more power is delivered to the shaft than electrical demand exists on the system, very undesirable things happen in the electromagnetic fields in the generator and voltage levels. You won't generate surplus energy, but you can damage equipment.

[thackney]

Whoops, make that:

But the electricity does NOT just pour out and get stored on the lines or vanish if not used.