Let’s use power plants and some strained metaphors to make broader points about various societal, corporate and personal challenges underway at the moment (March 2020). What is spinning reserve? Does it truly have to spin? Why should you care? What in the world would this term have to do with Napoleon and Frederick the Great?
A general definition of spinning reserve might be: generation capacity (MW) that is on-line (connected to the grid) but unloaded (or partially loaded) and capable to respond to outages elsewhere in the system. An appropriate quantity of spinning reserve would need to be determined by the system operator but often is considered to be enough to make up for the loss of the single largest generator in the system. If N is the number of generators of the same size online, N+1 is a simple way to express a system with a certain quantity of reserves. So how does this play out in various scenarios?
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