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Residential Demand Charges
Views: 366
May 22 2015 01:20 PM | eds in Economy & Politics
Demand charges for commercial and industrial customers,
. . . have long been a part of the electric industry.
. . . Since utilities need to build infrastructure to meet both instantaneous, and
. . . long-term requirements, the utility bill contains both an energy charge,
. . . which measures the amount of electricity a customer uses over time, and
. . . a demand charge, which measures how much power is used,
. . . at any given point in time.
The distinction between how much electricity you need right now, and
. . . how much you need in total over time is important.
. . . Imagine you want to fill a swimming pool with water.
. . . You could fill it in minutes with a fire hose.
. . . Or you could fill it in hours with a trickle from a garden hose.
. . . In both cases, you get the same amount of water.
How much water you get, how fast, is quite different, and
. . . that difference incurs costs to the system.
Residential electricity loads are pretty much the same,
. . . from one customer to the next.
But today, residential consumption patterns, are potentially very different.
. . . The customer with a “traditional” and smoother load curve,
. . . would cause fewer system costs,
. . . while the customer whose net grid demand surges,
. . . from essentially zero to peak would cause greater costs for grid resources
. . . (generation, transmission, distribution) to meet that surging need.
05-22-2015 Source: Residential Demand Charges
. . . have long been a part of the electric industry.
. . . Since utilities need to build infrastructure to meet both instantaneous, and
. . . long-term requirements, the utility bill contains both an energy charge,
. . . which measures the amount of electricity a customer uses over time, and
. . . a demand charge, which measures how much power is used,
. . . at any given point in time.
The distinction between how much electricity you need right now, and
. . . how much you need in total over time is important.
. . . Imagine you want to fill a swimming pool with water.
. . . You could fill it in minutes with a fire hose.
. . . Or you could fill it in hours with a trickle from a garden hose.
. . . In both cases, you get the same amount of water.
How much water you get, how fast, is quite different, and
. . . that difference incurs costs to the system.
Residential electricity loads are pretty much the same,
. . . from one customer to the next.
But today, residential consumption patterns, are potentially very different.
. . . The customer with a “traditional” and smoother load curve,
. . . would cause fewer system costs,
. . . while the customer whose net grid demand surges,
. . . from essentially zero to peak would cause greater costs for grid resources
. . . (generation, transmission, distribution) to meet that surging need.
05-22-2015 Source: Residential Demand Charges
