A change to electricity billing

[MindExpansion]

Hey guys, was just thinking about the possibility of changing electric billing to a use scheme that encourages conservation. Much like tax, those who use more get charged more. I.e you pay x cents a watt hour for the first 50 say hours, then x increases to y for all of the next say 50 hours etc etc.

Is this already done? Could it be done? Would it be effective?

Peace

[Torsten]

total use is really not terribly relevant for as long as our society and industry is geared towards consumption during peak periods. eg, if you are a night owl and hence use most of your electricity during off peak, then you are not contribuing to the baseload.

I think the best technology to help spread base load sideways is the new smart appliance technology. The appliance has a chip that registers the herz of the alternating current. At high loads the herz drop by a fraction and this can be measured inline by any appliance. The appliance can then defer using maximum power.

Your billing idea might work if everyone had similar power needs [rather than wants]. A house in Ballarat will need more heating than one just 50k away towards melbourne for example. Or a house with gas how water will use less electricity than one with electric HW.

I think the simple fact is that energy needs to have ALL of its cost included into the retail price. This includes CO2 remediation, mine regeneration, or any other environmental costs. By using power at a price below this we are simply borrowing [ie stealing] from our children as they will need to pay for these costs. By making power the price that it will ultimately cost we would instantly make alternative energy sources competitive and the problem would solve itself. We would need to move away from our obsession that 'growth is good'. Economic growth in most countries is based on wanton energy consumption. If we can't achieve growth on a sustainable basis then it's not really growth anyway as someone will have to pay the price later on. Just think if we have to remediate all CO2 we have created in the last 200 years - where would our growth be?

[Teotzlcoatl]

Torsten you are really freaking smart.

How do you know all this stuff?

Let me come up with some super vauge subject that you can tell me everything about... Just give me a sec...

Edited December 23, 2008 by Teotz'

[Torsten]

lol, alternative energy supplies is one of my hobby research fields. It often combines chemistry and plants, so it is just the perfect topic ;)

[lampy]

I would like to ask torsten, how does frequency relate to anything to do with power consumption of a normal household. The simple formula p+v/I explains power. how does frequency relate into this?

[Torsten]

I would like to ask torsten, how does frequency relate to anything to do with power consumption of a normal household. The simple formula p+v/I explains power. how does frequency relate into this?

To be honest I have no idea. I was as surprised as you when I first heard about this.

The way I understand it [for a 50Hz system] is as follows.

Turbines usually run at 3000rpm, which is 50 rps, ie 50Hz. The power generator has to match the supply exactly to the demand. If they pump more steam into the turbine without the matching physical resistance [ie load] then it will run faster, ie the Hz will go up. If the demand suddenly increases and there is not enough push in the turbines then they slow down a little which decreases the Hz. The aim is to keep the Hz between 49.5 and 50.5 Hz at all times. if it goes beyond these numbers the supplier will either disconnect customers or disconnect turbines.

It took me a while to get my head around this until I thought of a bicycle ride. On flat ground you pedal at a given rate to make the tyre spin at 50 rpm. If the ground slopes downwards a little then more kinetic energy goes into the system and your tyres spin faster [ie you pedal at the same rate, but with less energy]. if you reach a hill then you have to put a lot more energy into pedalling to keep the tyre spinning at 50rpm. If you don't put the kinetic energy into the pedals then your tyre will drop below 50rpm.

Turbines are just like bicycles. The load demand is like the terrain while the steam is like person pedalling.

Interestingly most major grid failures are due to a drop in Hz caused by a spike in demand. Like the ones that blacked out much of northern USA a few years ago. It's not the extra demand in power, as that could be fixed by simply dropping some customers, but rather the unpredictable frequency mess that can result from such overloads.

So yeah, I think the smart appliances detect a drop of 0.1 Hz.

Using smart appliances would not only save the 1 or 2 percent of power that the generator saves by not having to supply it at the expected peak time, but would also save maybe 10% or so that the generator does not have to maintain on standby in case of unexpected spikes in demand.I think it would be a great way to instantly cut a large chunk of wasted 'stand by' power as the flexibility of the demand would become the stand by supplier.