>Does 845 miles qualify as "a few hundred"?
>
It qualifies as next-door here. We have a relatively small number of
power stations, usually around energy sources such as coal mines, that
are thousands of miles apart and often thousands of miles from the
consumers.
We have also been trading power between supply authorities for at least
a decade, and had commercial sharing arrangements for much much longer.
However inefficient they think power transmission is, it's still more
efficient than transporting the coal/gas/oil used to generate it to
where the electricity will be consumed.
Besides, the trading arrangements don't necessarily buy the specific
electrons from a specific generator. If ABC Power has surplus
electricity, and XYZ Power has excess demand, then XYZ buys some of the
power that ABC has, but it is all poured into the grid and pulled off
the grid. It is entirely possible that DEF power is using some of ABC's,
and GHI is using some of DEF's, and so on until the power that XYZ is
buying is actually generated by UVW Power. A bit like if you deposit $10
into my bank account, and I go and withdraw that cash, I don't get the
same note you deposited.
Cheers Russell C.
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