The AM Forum

After jacking our rates to the sky the power company is begging us to turn off the AC till 8:00 PM. Maybe they could have invested in more power rather than a new fleet of trucks and perks for the boss.
I told the XYL to crank it. They upgraded our pole pig to a 50 from a 37 a while ago. looks like you have to blow it to get upgraded.

What ur line voltage today?

Yeah Frank,
Baltimore Gas & Electric also doubled their rates.

My line voltage has been 125-127 since last fall.

I've got UPS conditioners on anything important, which automatically pull the output line voltage down to 120.

Been thinking of using some of my 10V filament transformers out of the 300-G to make a bucking transformer for other stuff.

Mine is 127 today.... perfect....

everything runs better closer to 130 anyway... (refridge, freezer vacuum etc)


used to use 130 volt incan lamps, because the cheap little 115 volt lamps didn't last long...
Now use all compact flour lights.

Our rates haven't changed much...

11.34532 cents per kwh....
It's the   34 cents per day service charge that gets you....

Don't ya love the rural areas?

Itz about 95 or so here and so thick you can cut it with a knife. I know the Yl has had the ac crankin all day. Itz too miserable not to. I can only imagine this months bill with the new "bend ova" rates!!

Our glorius purveyor of powa has allways been unfair to commercial customers. The more that you use the more per unit they charge you if your a commercial customer. And they intentonally cut down the voltage because of the "demand". With everybody running ac's, and ac motors being inductive loads, thatz kinda like the butcher with his thumb on the scale while weighing ur pork chopz.

Oh, yea, and then there is that "fuel cost adjustment"....................

bend over, Buckwheat, this one's gonna hurt!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                  The Slab Bacon

Frank (GFZ),
What company do you have in both of your places?  I have CL&P here in Colchester.  About 3 years ago we started having problems with the power crapping out for no reason.  It didn't matter the time of day, load or whatever.  For about a year the power would drop at least 2 sometimes 3 times a month.  The worst one was in the middle of Feb when it was in the teens and power was out for 14 hours.  For a year our little area dealt with it then one day when my family was having a big get together here and the crap hit the fan.  The power dropped. My wife and I were expecting about 40 people for a family event that day and I was on the phone pestering CL&P to get someone out to reset the breaker.  They kept telling me there was nothing they could do.  I'm on a well so no water, no toilets. I told them I'd send them the bill for the spoiled food and other problems they'd created.  None of that worked until I told them that I was going down to Cato Corner Road, climbing the pole and resetting the breaker myself. They had someone out to reset the breaker within an hour.

A week later I got a call from the regional manager.  He told me that CL&P was going to upgrade the transformer and circuit breakers for our circuit.  I said that sounds good to me.  A week later I purchased a generator for the house.   I took a stroll from our neighborhood to the transformer and they not only beefed up the transformer like they said but put in all new circuit breakers.  And going on 2 years, to this day I have not had an outage since and never have had to use the generator.

You have to beat these people over the head to get results.

As a side note, when I threatened that I'd climb the pole and reset the breaker, I got that idea from my younger brother.   A while back someone had hit the pole in front of his house and fractured it.  CL&P told him that in 2 weeks someone would be there to remove the damaged pole. After several months and several wasted phone calls to CL&P the pole was still there being an eyesore.  My brother "offered" to remove the pole himself.  CL&P dispatched someone in the same day to take it down and it was gone.

It will hurt. But you are getting 8 years of pain all at once. Electrical power rates were frozen in MD since 1999. Just think if everything else was priced similarly.

I have some buddies at CL&P so when my building inspector sent the go ahead order they had me hooked up in a few days. When I first bought my lot the power co replaced the pole and threw the old one in 2 foot sections into the woods on my lot. I called them and tore them a new one for using my property for their dump. They came and took their dead thing away.
We had a 37 KVA here and it blew one hot night. they put in a 50. I don't know what my voltage is today but took out two bulbs this week so far. we are usually 126 volts here.
Down the beach one of my primaries has a western union splice that has been there as long as I can remember at least 40 years and hanging in. The main road has new big conductors but I get my power from the back street underground and a shorter run.
Bob, I've been busting my buddies on their nice new trucks.

Stevo,
         You used to live up here, and I know that you remember what your bill used to look like. They may not have had a "rate hike" for 8 years, but.................... They have always stuck it too us with their
"fuel cost adjustment" surcharge on the bill. IIRC it was sometimes as much as the the charge for amount of tricity used. Ie, half of the bill was the "fuel cost adjustment".

It sux!! But when you are the only show in town, you can get away with anything that you want. It really slapped us in the face when they did this after reporting record high profits last year! Why did they do it to us............because they can. If my salary would have gone up 50% in the last 8 years I wouldnt mind it. But it hasnt. So it does hurt.

It has gotten to be a real big issue around here, and it did have a major effect on the gubenatorial race.

                                                The Slab Bacon

Oh, I remember. And the state made some deal to pay in the future (via some sort of increased taxes, errr uh, I mean fees) to keep rates lower in the near term. All this was for some people to get reelected. Bend over baby!

But well before I moved out of there, I recall getting a mailing from several other electricity producers claiming I could buy power from them instead of BG&E. What ever became of this?

 "I could buy power from them instead of BG&E. What ever became of this? "

The deregulation of the power co allows for "competition", and thus lowers the price of the juice....  Yea...    Here in the Not Yet State,  National Grid, (the English Power Co.) is a power transport co. You can buy the power from them, or someone else. The Grid will charge you for the delivery servise, and you'll also get a bill from where ever you buy the juice from.

   " bend over, Buckwheat, this one's gonna hurt!!!!!!!!!!! "  -  this is now a 'group' activity -  ? Power Mafia?

the election is long ova, and the new electees are now playng all of it as far down as they can. Definately smearing on the slipprium! It is such a heated topic that it seems like even the news media is avoiding it.

Enough of that, You are not hearing anything at all these days from the "otha" electricity suppliers.  I never really understood how that worked. Since it is all still coming ova the same power lines, how can one tell where your electrons are coming from?? Do different producers dye them different colors?? or are some male and the others female?? And futhermore ya still gotta pay BGE for their "delivery charge".
I just neva really understood the principle behind all of that.

They were offering a chance for consumers to "defer" last years initial 25% increase ova the next 3 years. But you would still have to pay it back with interest. That sounded like a friggin double whammy to me. We are gonna stick it too ya and charge you interest on it too boot. We'll slap ya in the face and rub some salt into the wounds for you.

As I said before a 25% increase last year, and now a 50% increase on last year this year is kinda brutal. I wish my salary would have increased 75% in the last 8 years, but it hasent.

Competition would definately be a good thing if it could be real. Anytime there is a monopoly the end consumer always looses. "I'm the only one that has it, you desperately need it, so bend ova!!"

                                                     the Slab Bacon

          " how can one tell where your electrons are coming from?? Do different producers dye them different colors?? or are some male and the others female?  "

Well, thats an easy question to answer, See electrons have whats called "spin".  So if its from one PwrCo. thay may have "top spin". The other Co. may have left spin, or right spin... The Massachewsits Cos have 'left' spin. then thars No spin, some call that the O'Reilly spin. Den thers blue spin, AKA 'Carlin" spin and then bottom spin which tay say is kinda 'pink' .... ..

Deregulation has turned out to be a disaster in most areas that it's been tried.
Mostly because politicians were involved in writing the laws. ;-)

The thing is, today's technology *should* allow an electric consumer to pick and choose power providers on the fly. I could see where one could get an internet feed of real time wholesale electric power pricing and having a program automatically switch your source to the cheapest bid provider on a hourly basis.
Real competition.

Just like choosing your long distance carrier.

The local electric companies have been doing this for years, switching who they buy wholesale power from on almost a real-time basis. They get a continuous feed of wholesale prices on the grid on a printer and decide accordingly.

A side benefit might be that this would help out alternative power providers (wind, solar, hydro, co-gen, etc) whose fuel costs are next to zero. Or it would let eco-minded consumers choose renewable energy supplies at a price they'd be willing to pay. Or not.

Why this hasn't happened on the consumer side by now is beyond me, other than having a system like that would make the vested interests in the power industry unhappy.

CL&P is owned by a UK front that is owned by guess who ....hint fair WX friends

Of course, your definition, by defintion, is NOT deregulation. Therefore, deregulation has not failed. Rather, a different kind of regulation has failed.

Semantics aside, deregulation (so called) of the phone company/system has for the most part has worked. The explosion in services and the cellular technology occured after dereg and competion continues to fuel it. You would have never had something like the Apple iPhone on the market without all the restrictions being lifted (considering Apple was not a telcom company). Or Skype or Vonage or cable TV companies offering phone service or .....

In the case of Ct. Lawyers wrote the laws and politicians were too stupid to understand what they were voting for.

You sure said a mouthful there, Bill. Get them involved in anything, and it's bound to get messy and/or be inefficient. Modern medicine comes to mind. Like Steve says - just a different form of regulation. All the more reason to get gov't out of business' business.

I'm not sure what the kw/H charge is here, I should check. I get power from CVPS (Central Vermont Public Service) and I must say - until the last month or so, voltage stability has been great, between 117/120V day or night. Recently (before the hot wx) I noticed the power meter on the transmitter getting up between 120-125 at times, which is odd compared to what I'm used to.

When I moved down to Randawphul in 1994, I bet we lost power 5-10 times or more a year. Within a few years it was down to 2-3 times, the last 7-8 years it hardly ever goes out.

The one thing they did do was allow power companies to figure in their 'winter surcharge' into the entire twelve months, apparently to lessen the shock. My bill runs between $40-$60 on average, provided I don't leave the transmitter idling for hours on end. It's not unlike leaving a hair dryer going, heat as well as electricity-wise.

Frank - those who have the oil have the cash to buy all of the power grid in the US. Front companies like National Grid are buying everything up.

Frank - I thought you used to work for the power company.

Mike WU2D

[quote author=Todd, KA1KAQ link=topic=11435.msg82344#msg82344
 I get power from CVPS (Central Vermont Public Service) and I must say - until the last month or so, voltage stability has been great, between 117/120V day or night. Recently (before the hot wx) I noticed the power meter on the transmitter getting up between 120-125 at times, which is odd compared to what I'm used to.
 
[/quote]

That's interesting. Everyone, including myself, seems to be getting line voltage on the high side, much more than 120 volts. My household line consistently runs about 124-125. And that's been on three different utilities. One city-owned, one private company and now I'm on an REA.
OTOH, very few seem to have mentioned having a line voltage below 120.

With exceptions for certain types of loads, Ohm's Law seems to say the higher the line voltage, the more power you sell.

Raise the line voltage 3% and your revenue goes up by the square of 3% (E2/R)....And it's tough on incandescent light bulbs and boatanchors, too.

Not saying that's a common business plan to improve profitability, but...

Au contrare mon frere!! that is only true of resistive loads like light bulbs. Inductive loads (like AC motors on air conditioners) will draw more current when the voltage is lowered. Around here they drop the voltage to the lower part of the standard.

Our local purveyor of the golden reamer supposedly says that their standard is 114-126v. I have seen it as low as 110v in the summa and 128v in the winta. It used to drop as low as 87v untill I got the whole neighborhood to complain 18 years ago and they installed a larger transfoma and pulled new feeders. It was so bad that my microwave oven wouldnt work, and flourescent lights would drop out.
The older geezers in the hood thought it was supposed to be that way untill i brought it to their attention.

                                                       The Slab Bacon

When I worked in the ski industry in Maine several years ago..
Some of the larger mountains were fed-up with the cost of electricity to run their snow-making equipment.....

Basically, they told THE power company, to lower rates, or they  would install all diesel water pumps and air compressors...... (actually was  cheaper option)

So, without hesitation, the power company said "WAIT, NO, PLEASE DON"T DO THAT.... we can work out a deal!! "

And so they did.... each ski area that wanted to participate, had to intall a seperate metering service for JUST the snowmaking equipment, and was given a pretty good rate for only that usage.......


Maybe if whole neighborhoods got together and formulated a plausible way to generate their own 'tricity, they might be able to force lower rates from the local PoCo.



Todd, my rates from CVPS here in Granville, are about 11 cents per KWH, with a service charge of about 34 cents per day......
Wonder how that compares with you ... "...just over the hill......."

See, for years now I've thought the same thing, except the opposite: folks online from all over mentioning 120-125 average, and I was thinking...that's gotta stink if you run old gear. But I thought it was their location, some place in the city or so on, everywhere else must be like it is here. They'd be discussing the benefits of Variacs, bucking transformers, etc to get the power back down. I figured my power was right where it should be. I'd check it from time with a big AC fan meter and it used to sit right on 117. The meter in the transmitter would hover between 118-120 consistently, until the last month or so.


Yep, I recall reading somewhere (maybe the tube shield article you wrote for ER?) about the dramatic differences in tube life with minimal increased heat, also increased voltage on the order of 2-5 volts. Always considered myself lucky since the level at the Voice of Vermont studios was right on the money. I always saw the 115-125 spec on much of the older gear as the min/max it was intended to be, not that I could run gear on 125 consistently with no problems.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Our legislature spent most of last session trying to find new ways and new things to tax, our Nuke plant was one of the beneficiaries of yet more taxes. Maybe some of them are looking for ways around it. My understanding was that power companies are obligated to provide power as close to the standard as possible to prevent damage to consumer items, but I confess to very limited knowledge on the matter. I will say that, unlike other horror stories, the power company here is very responsive to any problems and quick to respond.

Of course, now that you've piqued my curiosity, I'm going home tonight to dig out the line meter and plug it in. It'll be interesting to see how it reads over the next week or so.

Well Bruce, as luck would have it, I have my bill from last month sitting here in my bag (keeping the OO Report company I think) and it says:

$.11882/KWH (Energy)                                  $42.54
$.37900/DAY  (Service Charge Days)               $12.51
$.0049600/KWH (Energy Efficiency Charge)       $1.78
                                                                $56.83

So there ya go. I get charged more for living in the bustling metropolis of RandAwphul. You should stop over sometime, we really have it good here....   ::)

Out to 5 and 7 decimal places and I thought gas stations were bad.

What is an "Energy Efficiency Charge"?

Gee last night XLY was proud to tell me we got down to $62 this bill as the freshly installed AC blasted out cold air.

What you say is true about motors drawing more current if the voltage is reduced
(if the load is constant).

But they also can draw more current and waste energy if run *above* nominal design voltage!

An assumption people often make is that since low voltage increases the amperage draw from motors, then high voltage must reduce the amperage draw and heating of the motor.

This is not the case.

High voltage on a motor tends to push the magnetic portion of the motor into saturation. This causes the motor to draw excessive current in an effort to magnetize the iron beyond the point of saturation. You just create a lot of hot wire.

Motors will tolerate a certain increase in voltage above the design voltage, but operating substantially above the design voltage will cause the current to go up with a corresponding increase in heating and a shortening of motor life. When an AC motor has 120 volts on the nameplate, it needs to run as close to 120 volts as possible.

Other factors of interest:

Inrush current goes up with higher voltage.
Overvoltage is most harmful to lightly loaded motors.

You know Steve, I'm not real sure....

What I THINK it is, is the extra charge that they place on your bill...
So if you install energy star rated appliances, they reduce that number....making you think you got something special out of the deal....



Sorta like raising your prices by 15%, a week before you have a big 10% off  sale....
 :o

got curious and went to the website....


"Vermont also collects an Energy Efficiency Charge, which funds energy efficiency services provided by Efficiency Vermont, the independent statewide energy efficiency utility."


Now THAT makes sense ...........

sounds like the energy efficiency welfare dept. to me.

The UPS I run has a logging feature that triggers an alert saying this:

Frequent Overvoltage
A Smart-UPS, Back-UPS Pro, or PowerStack has used its AVR Trim feature to decrease high input voltage more than five times during the last 24 hours, or more than fifteen times during the last seven days. This may indicate that the quality of the input voltage provided to the UPS needs to be improved.

This status clears when the AVR Trim usage drops below these thresholds (No Longer Frequent Overvoltage event).

Recommended Action:
Make sure that the Upper Bypass Limit is set to its highest setting, and that the Sensitivity setting is set to Low (Power Parameters (smart-signaling UPS only) in the Device Properties Dialog Box). These settings, which are the default settings for these parameters, cause the UPS to use its AVR Trim feature less frequently, and for shorter periods of time.

Bill,
     This may be true, but in our part of the world, low voltage is much more of a problem.

A few years back, i was having a problem with the big 2 ton window shaker in my dining room popping the 20A breaker on its dedicated line.
A few tests showed up the problem. It is rated to draw 12A @ 230v.
Voltmeter showed 197v and amprobe showed 19+A. As the line voltage came up later in the wee hours, the amprobe came down to the rated current draw. Also the increased current draw was also causing the windings of  the motor to heat up. It finally took its toll on the compressa. I had to replace it the following year. It crapped out during a 100+ heatwave!! Go figger.

                                                  the Slab Bacon

Another name for 'hidden tax' to fund some special interest group, more spending, whatever. Vermont is at the top of the heap for tax burden, has been for a number of years. Word has it they're perfecting a way to squeeze blood from rocks. You should see our phone bills...  ::)

I neglected to check the line voltage last night, got busy with other things. I'm going to plug in the meter over the weekend and take random readings, it'll be interesting to track where it goes and what it averages. It does seem to be running higher lately. Perhaps it's the new norm for my area.

YUP a year 'round high lectric bill now. Summertime bills 12 mos a year. Winter WAS so nice with a $50.00 lectric bill. Now retirement really suks.
Fred

How do youse guys manage $50-65 electric bills??  Mine used to run around $120-140 before the first increase last year. After the first increase they were $160-180 last year till now. I'm afraid to see what they will be this summa afta the additional 50% increase that started as of this month!!!!

If mine were that cheap I wouldnt give a shzt!!

                                                       The Slab Bacon

My bill has never been higher than $51.

BUT, I do NOT have:
Elec water heater,
Elec Stove,
"boatanchors"
Incandescent lamps
Elec Heat
Air conditioning
Furnace

etc....

The cookstove and 'on-demand' water heater are profane....
those cost about $30/month right there....

Woodstove for heat,
Solid State Radios
Compact Flourescents




I'll tell you, I was SHOCKED to get a $51 bill....

But when you add the propane to it.... $100 in electric wouldn't be "unreasonable"

Man, I wouldnt know how to act if my bills were that cheap!!
With the "new rates" I'm expecting to easily see $250-270 on the next bill. That just plain sux, especially for just 2 people living in this house.
                                                    The Slab Bacon

In the news today, our electric company here in CT is proposing a rate increase again in less than a year.

I got one of these for measure power consumption.  It also measure line voltage and a few other things as well. It was worth $30 or $40 I spent on it.
http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html

Exactly what killed Calif. In their wisdom the politicians deregulated the wholesale price paid by the utilities and capped the price charged by the utilities.

Enron made a ton of money, there were widespread brownouts and blackouts and the utilities wound up bankrupt

Well I hear they only need 4 % this time. So bend over and slather that lube here it comes.
the crooks in Hartford will do their usual nothing as businesses leave like rats off a sinking ship. Oh well the roads will be clearer for the last few rich able to live in the state with the highest gas tax. 
Lego is out of my town headed to Mexico. another empty building...maybe the jail next door can use it.