Tuesday 18 April 2017

Cutting Peak Consumption Dramatically Reduces Coal-fired Production



Look at these graphs from the right hand side first. The red line on the far right graph shows the admirable decline in coal fired electricity in UK over the last five years.
Over the past year, however, there was a nasty peak in the second half of January, when coal fired stations were brought out of mothballs - see the second graph from the right.
This peak coincides with maximum electricity demand for the year.
As usual the message is clear - reduce demand at peak times to reduce carbon!

Thursday 13 April 2017

Should we adopt Nicaraguan Domestic Electricity Pricing Policies?



If we adopted the Nicaraguan approach, low consumption users would be charged less per unit, and cross-subsidized by domestic consumers who use more.

"Currently, there are cross-subsidies in the tariff structure. Medium voltage consumers pay higher tariffs that serve to subsidize lower tariffs for low voltage consumers. Users that consume less than 150 kWh per month receive transfers from the rest of the consumers. The lowest-consumption users (0-50kWh/month) benefit from reductions between 45% and 63% in their average tariff. Consumers above the 50kWh limit also benefit from the subsidy scheme to a smaller extent." (Wikipedia) 

Easily done with smart meters! No net cost to the Government! Incentive to use less!