Hello.
IIRC, when I turn on my lights, the energy that powers it isn’t some energy stored somewhere, it is the energy being produced at that very moment at some power plant.
How does the system match the production with the demand at every given moment?
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Lightbulbs shine because they have a resistance. So when you turn a lightbulb, or any electronic on, you’re increasing the resistance of the circuit. So the resistance of the turbines at the power source is increased, causing it to have to be pushed more to turn and produce an electric potential field. A turbine with no resistance behind it would very freely spin, so the power plant wouldn’t be producing any energy. A turbine with a large resistance would have to be pushed very hard to spin, much more than the inertia of the turbine initself.
It IS stored… in kinetic energy. The spinning turbine blades and magnets they use to generate power DO slow down the tiniest little bit when you flick the lights on.
It’s just that there are a LOT of VERY HEAVY spinning turbines at any one given moment. And more steam can be generated relatively quickly depending on the type of the power plant.
In big power plants, electricity is produced by running steam through turbines. These turbines spin at a given rate to match the frequency of the electric grid (in US 60 Hz, in Europe 50 Hz). If there is less demand, the turbines start spinning faster so the frequency increases. At the same time, electric motors in heavy industry would start spinning faster. The same goes also the other way round when demand increases.
What you need to do now is to bring in tools that you can use to drive net frequency in a controlled way.
Gas plants for example can be controlled more directly by burning more gas. Nowadays you would also use batteries. There are multiple layers to stabilize the electric grid.
A spinning wheel is driven by an engine. It pushes on the electrons in a wire. This push is transmitted to your house. When you plug something in or flip a switch, the electrons in your wire are suddenly allowed to move from that push.
Back at the power plant, the wheel slows down a tiny bit, due to those moving electrons sapping energy from it.
If no electrons move, no energy is sapped, so the energy sapped always matches your demand.
Then the engine adjusts its power to keep the wheel moving at almost exactly the same speed.