Matching of Power Station Output To Load
To keep a stable voltage and frequency, the power generated at any instant has to be kept close to the load imposed. To do this, National Grid continuously forecasts load ahead on various timescales, 7 years, annually by season (winter outlook and summer outlook), daily, hourly, and shorter time frames.
For the rolling 24 hours ahead, it estimates what the load is then likely to be based mainly what the load is at the moment of forecast, but adjusted for likely weather changes, day of the week and other special events. it then schedules the required power stations, plus the appropriate reserve. As time progresses, the forecast is constantly updated until real time is approached, when the balancing is largely automatic using spinning reserve.
Read more about this topic: Control Of The National Grid
Famous quotes containing the words power, station, output and/or load:
“To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.”
—Sarah Ellis (1812–1872)
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“Men so noble,
However faulty, yet should find respect
For what they have been. ‘Tis a cruelty
To load a falling man.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)