Abstract
THE paper read by Prof. Miles Walker to the Institution of Electrical Engineers on April 2, discussing the prices for electric supply in Great Britain, will interest all who try to see the reasons for the great disparities in the prices charged. It would naturally be thought that low prices would only be found where distribution costs per unit are low. But this is not the case, for they are found also in residential areas where higher prices might reasonably be expected. As an example, Prof. Walker quoted the Oxford supply, where a company had been iri existence for about forty years; when, in 1931, the supply was taken over by the municipal authorities, drastic reductions were made in the cost of supply. The result has been that the total net income earned is now a greater percentage of the total capital involved than when the prices were high in 1931. In other words, if the company had had the courage to reduce the prices from almost the highest in the country to almost the lowest for that kind of district, it would have been ableprovided it managed as well as the corporationto pay a slightly larger dividend. In Prof. WTalker's opinion, the main difficulty is to evolve some method of charging which will apportion to each consumer his proper share of the standing charges. He made a most ingenious suggestion for constructing meters the rates of which would depend on the times of the day at which the consumer would be taking his loads. We foresee that there would be great difficulties in explaining this system of charging to new consumers and serious difficulties with electric motor-clocks, and humming noises would have to be overcome.
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Prices for Electric Supply. Nature 137, 649–650 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137649c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137649c0