Quote:
Originally Posted by AC/HL
Or the lighting circuit. In the early days the power tariff was higher than lighting, presumably to slow the demand on the limited generating capacity pre grid.
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I believe that you are mistaken about this.
Power and lighting were indeed charged at different rates, but the "power" rate was invariably cheaper than the "lighting" rate.
In the very early days of electricity supply, it was used primarily for lighting. The supplier therefore had to invest a lot of capital in plant that only produced significant revenue between dusk and midnight.
The lighting rate was therefore high, over £1 a unit in todays money, since it had to cover not just the coal cost but also repayments of the capital invested.
Power companies therefore sought to build the "daylight load" for non lighting purposes. Power for such daytime uses could be generated for little more than the cost of coal burnt, since the capital had already been sunk.
The "power" rate was often less than half of the lighting rate. Cookers and water heaters were often sold or rented very cheaply to encourage use of electricity for such purposes.
"power" circuits often used 5 amp sockets in the early days, hence the desire to restrict loadings to about this figure.
Dishonest consumers connected lamps to power circuits so as to obtain illumination at the lower power tariff.