3.1.1 How the electricity system works

Course subject(s) 3. Climate-neutral electricity: the pivotal role of renewables

How does the electricity grid work? In this video we look at the basics necessary to understand the challenges that come with weather-dependent and therefore variable renewable electricity generators.

Key takeaways:

  • Electricity supply and demand must always be perfectly balanced
  • Electricity demand varies through space and time
  • Traditional electricity generators were mostly controllable (dispatchable), but renewables are weather-dependent, so they also vary in space and time
  • Traditional grids have base load and peak load power plants; renewable grids need new ways to deal with variability
Creative Commons License
Designing Climate-Neutral Industry and Electricity Generation by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://online-learning.tudelft.nl/courses/designing-climate-neutral-industry-and-electricity-generation//
Back to top