system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Where does surplus electricity go?

I was thinking about a post I saw that said Germany was shutting down power plants because solar was producing so much electricity. Supposing that is true, what happens before they shut them down? Is there more electricity being produced than used? What happens to the extra?
gpt
In a general sense, unused load is wasted.

In a practical sense, unused load is often stored in a number of ways, such as mechanically in a fly wheel or chemically through any number of processes, such as hydrogen production. Occasionally, this extra power is delivered to something like a distillation plant, to produce clean water, for example. These sources can usually be passed back into a generator to produce power when required.

It isn't 'wasted', it just isn't use for what we typically use power for. It'll be diverted into something vaguely useful, or it is lost.