Category: Electricity

The maximum power that could be produced under continuous operation with the entire plant running and with adequate fuel stocks of normal quality.

Term used in planning and demand-side management that refers to the distribution of energy requirements over time. Derived from the practice of plotting energy requirements on a chart or graph, which produces a graph whose curve usually has a distinctive shape. When distribution of energy requirements is changed, the shape of the graph also changes, so the redistribution of demand or load is referred to as changing the load shape

A utility’s practice of adding additional generation to available energy supplies to meet moment-to-moment demand in the distribution system served by the utility, and/or keeping generating facilities informed of load requirements to insure that generators are producing neither too little nor too much energy to supply the utility’s customers