Learning
Start Here
A) Outline
B) Basics
C) Generator
D) Prime Mover
E) Fuel
F) Distribution
  1) What's the Grid?
  b) Natural Monopolies
  c) High-Voltage Grid
  d) Lower-Voltage Grid
  e) NERC
  2) Recap: Distribution
Finish Here

 

 
 
F1a) What's The Grid? Description

An inter-connected web of wires covers North America (the entire globe, for that matter).  You’ve probably seen them so often, that you don’t even notice them anymore.  A useful way to think about them is like the public road and highway system.

Just like the road and highway system, its design is very ‘organic’.

You have some big, high-capacity lines for long-distance transportation (veins & arteries)…

...connected to many smaller lines for local distribution (capillaries and arterioles).

The entire web, we call ‘the grid’.

Some have argued that the distribution of electricity is the only ‘natural monopoly’ in existence.  Let’s take a look at how this fits with the current deregulation that's occurring in North America.

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