spare capacity
Room for more
Spare capacity is the unused portion of what a system, resource, or operation can handle.
A factory running at 70% has spare capacity to increase production.
An electrical grid needs spare capacity to handle surges.
The term appears in economics, engineering, and infrastructure planning: OPEC's spare capacity affects oil prices.
Having spare capacity provides flexibility but represents idle potential.
- excessSurplus beyond need
- slackAbsence of tautness
- slack timeUnused time in schedule
- bufferProtective intermediate space
- reserveSupply kept back
safety net · headroom · surplus · overflow · idle · idle hands · unused · on standby · standby · backup · just in case · cushion · rainy day fund · margin · leeway · redundancy · flexibility · breathing room
- reservesreserve, reserves, bank reserves, cash reserves, fuel reserve
- leewaywiggle room, latitude, slack, margin, play
- capacity levelsmaxed out, overloaded, saturated, saturation, underused
- manufacturingfactories, factory, car factory, assembly plants, electronics factory
spare capacitymaximum capacity
Upper limit of containment
full load · at capacity · maxed out · saturation · running hot
spare capacityoverload
Burden beyond capacity
strain · overstretched · stretched thin · overburdened · overwhelmed
spare, capacity, sparing, sparingly, spared, spares, capacities, capacious, capacitor