Where would the electric current go if everyone on the power grid were to shut the master power switch off?

Question

In other words, an isolated location has a large power generating plant that does not feed into a larger power grid but generates power for 1 million homes and businesses, where would the current go if all one million customers were to throw the master power on/off switch to off at exactly 1:00 PM on July 15, 2008? Thanks

Answer 1

Current is created "on demand."  The generators spin, but they only work harder as the load demands.  If everyone shuts down their electrical use, then generators will be turned off, oil/coal/natural gas/water used will go down as the generators don't have to do as much work.  

But more importantly, petroleum products would not be used as much, so the money flooding to the Middle East would be cut back, and there would start to be a surplus of oil, which would cause them to raise the price on what little they are selling (the reverse of the law of supply and demand when you have a near monopoly).  

But, what would you do for the long term?  The Demoncrats have all but stopped nuclear energy to support their friends in the Middle East, so where would you get your power?  Solar is a weak proposition, wind is erratic and cannot be stored, water power is maxed out in this country, and the miniature black hole generator that I used is not available for public use, as King George/Prince Obama/Queen Hillary and their lap-dog congress would just tax it to death.  Wood is unreasonable for 300+ million people.  Our only choice until things change is petroleum, so you will have to turn back on the power sooner or later.

But thanks for your empty gesture, anyway.  At least you are thinking outside the propaganda...

Answer 2

If everyone shut off at exactly the same time, within a second (highly unlikely) the utilities would wind up with lots of large circuit breakers opening, and lots of other problems.

That's because it takes time to reduce power output -- there is lots of momentum in the system.

Exactly how many problems and what they are and how long they take to develop, I'll leave to any power experts around.

Answer 3

The current would not go anywhere.  It would just stop.  The load - the customers - dictate the current and the power.  A single generation station has control of frequency and voltage.  Not much else.  

If you were to coordinate one million customers to simultaneously turn off power, equivalent to the power station opening its output breaker while at full load, it would then dependant on the electrical protection relay scheme of the power plant.  The frequency and voltage output of the power plant would rise a lot.  Some plants have trips associated with excessive frequency - somewhere between 62 and 64 Hz - and some have trips associated with excessive line voltage or excessive volts/hertz.  Some of these trips have a time delay with them to allow for the automatic controls to lower the voltage and frequency before tripping the generator's output breaker.

Dependant on the type of power plant many other things will happen.  For a gas turbine plant the gas valve on the GT will throttle back really quickly.  That's about it.  For a steam plant the throttle valve for the steam turbine will throttle back really quickly, but back up steam pressure and probably lift a steam safety before the fuel can be reduced to lower the heat to the boiler.  A hydro plant will just quickly reduce the flow of water to its turbines.  Might shutdown the power plant, might not.

To the Mormon Engineer - Which energy source that produces electricity for our consumption in the US comes from the middle east.  Very frickin little you moron.  Quit perpetuating your republicunt propaganda

Answer 4

no, you can't just "store power" in a grid.

Powerstations would notice the dropping load, and reduce output.

But first of all controllers would notice it and shut down the incoming power bought from other areas to compensate for the lack of power generation capacity.

Answer 5

Sounds like you're planning something :] haha.

I'm pretty sure all power plants have a reserve power grid that stores unused power.

Answer 6

Nowhere, it would stay at the plant and/or not be generated.

Answer 7

there wont be any current flowing if there is no load. consumers' appliances are the load here.

Answer 8

I'm pretty sure the electrical power would just stop, even though there are magnetic fields in transformers and probably some capacitor banks here and there, with AC, the power is already "stopping" many times a second., so I wouldn't expect any big surges, though I could be wrong.

Now the mechanical power at the generating plant is another question, I really don't know exactly what would happen, I suppose there is a risk some generators would over speed for a brief period. However, big power lines do sometimes fail, so I'd think plants are designed to handle sudden loss of load, but I bet there would still be some pretty excited people at the power plant.