The grid is a heavy rope that you are trying to keep tension on so that it doesn't touch the ground. One side of the rope is the power station, the other end splits and frays into individual strands that connect to every meter on that grid.
Strands are continually, almost randomly, disconnected (let go), reconnected (picked up), and the amount of "pull" on the rope each strand creates will vary (usage fluctuations). This means the power station needs to continually be adjusting how much it "pulls" on the rope to maintain tension and keep it from dropping.
I like this one because it not only avoids water and pipes and cuts to the core of the balance issue that is going on. It's not "thing A flows from point B to point C" but rather "this is an active system and careful balancing act".
That being said I recognize that the water pipe models are well studied, even in how they successfully model some aspects (and fail to capture others) of electrical grids.
The grid is a heavy rope that you are trying to keep tension on so that it doesn't touch the ground. One side of the rope is the power station, the other end splits and frays into individual strands that connect to every meter on that grid.
Strands are continually, almost randomly, disconnected (let go), reconnected (picked up), and the amount of "pull" on the rope each strand creates will vary (usage fluctuations). This means the power station needs to continually be adjusting how much it "pulls" on the rope to maintain tension and keep it from dropping.
I like this one because it not only avoids water and pipes and cuts to the core of the balance issue that is going on. It's not "thing A flows from point B to point C" but rather "this is an active system and careful balancing act".
That being said I recognize that the water pipe models are well studied, even in how they successfully model some aspects (and fail to capture others) of electrical grids.