Abstract
DURING the last few years, electrical engineers have given much study to the development of tariffs for electric power which will benefit both consumer and producer and lead to an increased demand for their product. Dr. Hopkinson pointed out fifty years ago that a steady load could be generated much more cheaply than a variable load, although their total loads for a given timo were the same. This follows because with a steady load you require less machines in reserve than you do when there are peaks in the load for which much reserve plant is required which is only used for a comparatively short time. The total annual costs of a supply station depend on the running costs and the overhead costs, the former usually being only about one eighth of the latter. Hence any saving in the capital costs of the reserve plant enables appreciable savings to be divided between producer and consumer and would probably attract new consumers. One way of securing a uniform load is by means of a ‘time-of-day’ tariff. The rate at which the meter registers could be controlled by a ripple current superimposed on the supply current. The ideal case of continuous variation would be difficult, but if the rate at which the meter registers was changed at the supply station two or threo times a day, the consumers being notified of the times of these changes, most of them would naturally be careful to keep down their consumption during the times when the meter was registering a high charge. This would increase the ‘diversity’ of the load and make it more uniform, thus lowering the station cost.
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“Time-of-Day” Electric Tariffs. Nature 144, 126 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144126a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144126a0