'Is it time to change energy pricing to ‘kettles boiled’?' blog discussion

John_Pierpoint

No problem with the meter rental idea, though the daily rate should accurately reflect the real cost of maintaining a typical property's local link to the supply network - like the financial industry has been stopped from charging extortionate amounts for sending letters to the customer.

Though not exactly correct scientifically, the kW has become the standard for measuring the "power" of things from cars to boilers to kettles to led light bulbs. It really in not brain surgery to realise that a 3kW kettle left boiling for an hour would use up 3 kWh of chargeable electricity. (*)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour

Please try to educate the users of this web site, not dumb down to the lowest level.

John

When we joined the European Union we had to agree to standardise down from our 250 volt supply to their 230 volt supply. If you need a campaigning cause there may be a case to answer if you find out how many people are being charged for 250 volts when all their appliances now need only 230 volts - I make that about an 8% overcharge but at least the kettle then works 8% faster !

I wonder if the over voltage burns out appliances faster and if it may be responsible for risks like Bosh having to do a recall on the controllers of their dishwashers, following reports of smoke logged kitchens.

N1AK

WestonDave wrote: »

Meter rent I could live with, however I think the "kettles boiled" is a dodgy comparison because of the massive potential variation in the power of the kettle and the amount of water put in.

I also think that the meter rent change makes some sense, and am not persuaded by the kettles boiled comparison.

I am reasonably energy savvy. We use efficient bulbs, consider energy efficiency when buying electronics etc; however I have no idea how many 'kettle boils' I'd save by buying one device over another? I don't think that terminology has any advantage or adds any clarity.

donny-gal

I have no issue with meter rental, however, would like to see the elimination of standing charges totally, why is it wrong just to pay for what we use whichever day we use it.
Kettle boils would blow some folks minds, they would then start saying, I don't use a kettle, I just boil much my water in a pan on the electric stove! And also forget the electric fire/heater/radiator/oven/Hob/central heating pump uses electric.
DG

JJ_Egan

Different size kettles make this a fail .
kwh actually works if it does not require like gas a conversion factor .
Standing charge for services not hard to understand .
Meter rental misses the rest of the services .

Whatever method is used just as many people will be just as confused .

wiggers

zerog wrote: »

I don't have a TV.

I don't have an electric fire!

jamesd

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

When we joined the European Union we had to agree to standardise down from our 250 volt supply to their 230 volt supply. If you need a campaigning cause there may be a case to answer if you find out how many people are being charged for 250 volts when all their appliances now need only 230 volts - I make that about an 8% overcharge but at least the kettle then works 8% faster !

Good jokes. For those who didn't get them:

1. The UK mains supply is still 240 volts. It is defined as 230 volts with tolerance of up to 10% higher or 6% lower, giving a range from 216.2 to 253 volts but 240 volts is what is really supplied. Equipment has to be designed to work with that range of voltages. The actual supply voltage varies a little depending on how far you are from a substation. It also varies a bit during the day, dropping for a while at peak loads and running a little higher at low load times so that the total number of cycles in the day stays the same. The cycles matter because they are used by older clocks for timing, so National Grid takes care that the cycle counts are about right over a while day. The variations are unique so they can be used in forensic analysis of recordings.

2. Domestic consumers aren't charged for the voltage supplied, but for the power used. Supplying lower voltage would save consumers money because various appliances would use less power overall if supplied at a lower voltage. Not electric kettles, though, they would just run for a bit longer to put out the same total amount of heat.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I wonder if the over voltage burns out appliances faster and if it may be responsible for risks like Bosh having to do a recall on the controllers of their dishwashers, following reports of smoke logged kitchens.

A higher voltage causes conventional filament bulbs to burn brighter but last for less time. Electric kettles and toasters take less time to do their jobs at higher voltages. Higher voltages causes motors like those in fridges and freezers to run faster, use more power and have shorter lifetimes. In general it's beneficial to consumers to have a lower voltage supply. For more on this subject have a read about voltage optimisation. But while beneficial, it's not worth paying for anything to do it and the possible gain is pretty marginal.

Your overcharge for lower voltage campaign would fail for lack of merit but you cold start an alternative one complaining about not having had our supply reduced to 230 or 220 volts to save energy. That one may also fail because some industrial motors have trouble and can be damaged by a lower voltage than the one they were designed for.

John_Pierpoint

Very interesting post - I had not realised that all the grid linked generators somehow slow down or speed up, depending on the load, even if the source of the power might be next door rather than at the other end of the country.

Logically it has to be all kept in sync but it is difficult to understand how a sudden surge of power use in say the south can instantly transmit the need for extra load (ie "lets slow down" ) to a generating set in the north.

I am typically on 250 volts.

Near to "a substation" it is a transformer up a wooden pole about 200 yards away.

I share it with a neighbour.

However I am last on the wire coming from the West and my other neighbour is last on the wire coming from the East.

sequence

What's the problem with energy bills ? I can't see how they could possibly be any simpler. There's really no need for change, we need to change the consumers brains not the bills

Nada666

Seems a really dumb idea. The kWh is a perfectly normal and graspable amount. The name may be confusing (with kWh used per hour being mixed with kW per hour) but the size of the unit is fine.

A single bar of an electric fire for an hour. Why is that difficult? If a kettle is used continually for an hour it uses the same as 2.6 bars (well, it'll use far less due to blowing out sooner).

The suggested measure (2,600 Watts for four minutes) is not very usable. That would be 4x60x2.6 kWseconds or 624 kWseconds.

"Hello, you used 59 million units last year." not very graspable.
"Hello, you used 95,192 kettles". any less usable than kWh?

A boiler uses 624 kettles when going full blast. Why is that more useful?

I really don't see how combining kettles and megaKettles and centiKettles would be any more or less difficult than getting your head round the current standard of 1,000 Watts for an hour is 1 kWh and working out combining xy Watts for z hours for 7 days a week is xy * z * 7 Watt hours.

Yes, working out how that sort of calculation is done can take time - but using a smaller unit does not make the concept simpler.

Nada666

(Instead of wasting time with such a thing just use straightforward examples of Watts and kiloWatts and kWhs.

EG, talking about the savings when using lightbulbs can be very enlightening (ahem). Talk about 100 W bulbs for 4 hours a day 365 days a year etcetera)