I am concerned that distribution companies allow voltages to drift towards the upper limit of 254.4 volts (or beyond) to virtually all customers on lightly-loaded LV lines in the pre-dawn hours. My research shows that this "do-nothing" approach to voltage regulation results in an artificial increase of energy consumption and energy costs to consumers of over 25% for those "standby appliances" used in my study. (at 254.4 volts compared to 240 volts). It is no surprise to me that the Winner tariff is referred to in the industry as the "Loser" tariff (told to me by a DB1 employee). I believe fridge motors would show a very similar increase in consumption, no doubt compounded by the fact that the overheated compressor heats the fridge compartment from beneath! (June 1997 update: I was wrong about motors, but not about all the other appliances in your house. A well designed motor will have an almost constant power consumption over the 214 to 254 allowable voltage range at the appliance: see ACCC Technical Review.)It does surprise me that the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board state they have NEVER done a study of electrical fires by time-of-day or day-of-week. The overall data published in their 1996 Annual Report is worrying enough, with certain hours on Sunday mornings being the worst day of the week for fires in the pre- dawn hours. This is just when Victorian system demand is routinely at its lowest, and "do-nothing" voltage regulation would result in the highest voltages for all customers.
Whether or not the MFB eventually analyses the data already in their posession, and proves or disproves an inverse correlation between incidence of electrical fires and Victorian system demand, I believe it would be prudent for a responsible industry participant to continue the safe voltage pattern that Solaris delivered from the Flemington zone substation on the four mornings of 1st to 4th January. (June 1997 update: the MFB did analyse some data in May 1997, and it would appear that the Sunday morning fires must have another cause, or be increased by a statistically insignificant amount. See this information update.)
Why all the fuss, when the SECV was probably running the system in a very similar way? Because the NEM now demands a level playing field, and "do nothing" voltage regulation is artificially raising Victorian system demand by several tens of megawatts, and must thus be a market distortion which favours base-load generators (this is where the ACCC comes in). We also have a National Greenhouse Response Strategy to implement, not to mention the issue of compensation for customers whose appliances burn-out prematurely, or who are paying 10-20% too much for the overheating of all their non-heating appliances.
It is noteworthy that supermarkets are selling lightglobes rated at 240-250 volts, claiming "longer life", and the January 1997 issue of "Silicon Chip", a popular electronics magazine based in Sydney has a construction article for an autotransformer to reduce voltage to household lighting circuits. Thus the industry seems to be "pushing the voltage envelope" not just in Kensington, but on a national scale. No doubt all technical people in the industry are aware of the "power equals V-squared-on-R" relationship, but I somehow doubt if a search of company records would find many minutes of Directors meetings where operators had been specifically endorsed to improve the industry's bottom line by using such methods. Is anybody really taking responsibility on this issue?
My personal view is that the Kennett government must shoulder some of the responsibility, and I intend to make it an issue in the forthcoming West Gippsland by-election. Electricity customers tend to vote, and whether or not voltages have gone up noticeably since privatisation, I think they may be a little annoyed to learn that they are paying at least 10% too much on their power bills, and suffering from premature failure of many appliances. (Update: the non-conservative candidate defeated the Liberal Party candidate).
It is really depressing to attend NGMC seminars and hear all the industry leaders discussing how "gold-plating" will be discouraged in the network. We haven't even got tin-plating! The only shiny metal to be seen in the suburbs is the hundreds of galvanised props holding up all the rotting poles. It seems ludicrous that the voltage to the Housing Commission tenants has to be turned up in order to feed adequate voltage to the commercial premises in the shopping centre at the other end of my LV line. But surely not at 4am in the morning? What a marvellous commercial symbiosis when the lack of investment in the network side of a distribution business gives it the "reason" for having to supply excess voltage into the system, and sells up to 10% more energy as a consequence. Strange sort of a ring-fence between the two businesses!
January 1997
\ Dr Michael Gunter MB,BS \ \______ Trustee, Renewable Energy Development Trust /| of the Alternative Technology Association / | 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 3000 Australia / | | Email: mickgg@suburbia.com.au | Fax: +61 3 9419 1678 | WWW: http://suburbia.net/~mickgg/ | http://www.ata.org.au/~ata/breamlea.htmcopies: ACCC, AGE, CEPE, ORG, VPX, NECA, NEMMCO (and the Internet)
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