ELECTRIC POWER

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 50

ELECTRIC POWER

DOMESTIC RATES PROPOSED REDUCTION. The Electric Power and Lighting Committee of the City Council will report to the meeting of the council on Wednesday night that it has given consideration to the question of a revision in the domestic rates with the primary object of eliminating, if possible, the capacitycharge. There appears to be no doubt, states the committee, that however equitable the charge may be in theory, i n practice it is unpopular, and is acting as a brake on the development of the domestic load. A lengthy report from the city electrical engineer on the matter sets out the under-noted proposed new schedule of rates, based on the elimination of the capacity charge. This, the committee lias approved, and it now submits to the council with a recommendation for its adoption, viz.:— (a) Lighting and small portable heating and cooking appliances up to a capacity of 2|kw.: Five pence per unit for 1| unite every two months per 100 square feet of gross floor space, less 10 per cent., and excluding projections, verandahs, outhouses., etc., and Id per unit for all in excess of this number. (This is exactly the same rate as at present.) (b) Lighting, heating, and cooking where the range is a permanent installation and over 2| kw. capacity: Primary charge same as (a), but with a minimum guaranteed average revenue of £1 per month, exclusive of water heating on a fixed rate. All units used in excess of 300 units per month at Jd per unit. In order to give those consumers who would pay more by the adoption of the new rates an extension of time within which they may decide as to their future course of action, it is further recommended that both the new system and the existing system remain in force for a period of two years in the case of present range users only, after which time all consumers would come under the new rates. All new consumers coming on after the adoption of the present recommendation would, of course, automatically come under the new rates. It is considered that the above proposals, by eliminating the capacity charge, would remove the least understood and most objectionable feature of the domestic charges, particularly in the case of electric ranges, and would have the effect of considerably stimulating the installation of such apparatus.