The power company run a line to my house. They supply me with
electricity. This amounts to a 230V, 65A facility at the distribution
board in a cupboard under the stairs. I run all my stuff from that
board. The board contains several RCBOs that trip-out in the event of
any leakage current being sensed. If current in = current out; they're
happy and won't trip. Because they don't trip out, I conclude I don't
use any current.
The voltage supplied is 230VAC RMS. Since this is alternating between
equal positive and negative half-cycles, the average level of this
voltage supply is zero.
I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:42:19 +0000, the renowned Paul Burridge
wrote:

The power company run a line to my house. They supply me with
electricity. This amounts to a 230V, 65A facility at the distribution
board in a cupboard under the stairs. I run all my stuff from that
board. The board contains several RCBOs that trip-out in the event of
any leakage current being sensed. If current in = current out; they're
happy and won't trip. Because they don't trip out, I conclude I don't
use any current.

No, you don't use hardly any leakage current to earth (RCD), and you
don't use more than the maximum trip current between lines (MCB). An
RCBO is an MCB + RCD, to use the Brit terms.

The voltage supplied is 230VAC RMS. Since this is alternating between
equal positive and negative half-cycles, the average level of this
voltage supply is zero.

But the RMS value is 230VAC.

I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

Why don't you ring up the power company engineers and see if you can
get them to see things your way? Could save a lot of money.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:42:19 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:

The power company run a line to my house. They supply me with
electricity. This amounts to a 230V, 65A facility at the distribution
board in a cupboard under the stairs. I run all my stuff from that
board. The board contains several RCBOs that trip-out in the event of
any leakage current being sensed. If current in = current out; they're
happy and won't trip. Because they don't trip out, I conclude I don't
use any current.
The voltage supplied is 230VAC RMS. Since this is alternating between
equal positive and negative half-cycles, the average level of this
voltage supply is zero.
I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

You don't get billed for current, you get billed for energy - in the
UK the measure is the kilowatt hour. Multiply your voltage by your
current instant by instant, take the average (gives you power) and
multiply that by the duration in hours and you have your consumption.

NIce try, though...

d
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:56:34 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

You don't get billed for current, you get billed for energy - in the
UK the measure is the kilowatt hour.

Hey, whose side are you on? ;-)

Multiply your voltage by your
current instant by instant, take the average (gives you power) and
multiply that by the duration in hours and you have your consumption.

They don't bill me instant-by-instant; they bill me for the power they
claim I've used over the course of a three-monthly period. Since power
is the product of voltage and current (and I've proved earlier that
both are zero) I'm being charged for electricity that I've not
actually used. The current goes in and out of the house unchanged.
It's all returned to the power company. All I've done is borrow it.
And you can bet that when they get their current back they don't just
dump it to ground; oh no. They re-sell it again and again and again to
other suckers like me. We're all paying multiple sums for the *same*
lousy current that's probably been circulating for years.
The power companies have been scamming us for decades! I can't believe
I've only just woken up to it.

--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:38:08 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:56:34 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

You don't get billed for current, you get billed for energy - in the
UK the measure is the kilowatt hour.

Hey, whose side are you on? ;-)

Multiply your voltage by your
current instant by instant, take the average (gives you power) and
multiply that by the duration in hours and you have your consumption.

They don't bill me instant-by-instant; they bill me for the power they
claim I've used over the course of a three-monthly period. Since power
is the product of voltage and current (and I've proved earlier that
both are zero) I'm being charged for electricity that I've not
actually used. The current goes in and out of the house unchanged.
It's all returned to the power company. All I've done is borrow it.
And you can bet that when they get their current back they don't just
dump it to ground; oh no. They re-sell it again and again and again to
other suckers like me. We're all paying multiple sums for the *same*
lousy current that's probably been circulating for years.
The power companies have been scamming us for decades! I can't believe
I've only just woken up to it.

Aww c'mon - if you multiply a positive voltage by a positive current
you get positive power. If you multiply negative voltage by negative
current you get positive power.

Anyway - are you cleaning and refurbishing those amps before you give
them back? They wear out, you know.

d
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:48:00 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

Aww c'mon - if you multiply a positive voltage by a positive current
you get positive power. If you multiply negative voltage by negative
current you get positive power.

Sorry, Don, you obviously haven't thought this through. Since *all*
their current is returned, I cannot have used *any* of it. Whatever
the voltage might be, multiplying it by zero Amps still gives zero
power!

Anyway - are you cleaning and refurbishing those amps before you give
them back?

Why should I? That's *their* job. I pay enough!

They wear out, you know.

You mean they like lose their charge after a while? That would make
sense as I've found as years have gone by, I've had to turn the
heating up more and more. The thieving *******s!


--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:09:35 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:


Sorry, Don, you obviously haven't thought this through. Since *all*
their current is returned, I cannot have used *any* of it. Whatever
the voltage might be, multiplying it by zero Amps still gives zero
power!

---
That's not how they do it.

Since they know that they'll get back every bit of current they send
you, they keep track of what they send you for three months, normalize
it to 1 and call it "a", call what you send them back "b", and then do
the followwing maths:

normalize a:
a = 1

set b = a:
a = b

multiply both sides by a:
a² = ab

subtract b² from both sides:
a² - b² = ab - b²

factor both sides:
(a + b)(a - b) = b (a - b)

divide both sides by (a - b):
(a + b)(a - b) = b (a - b)
-------------- -----------
(a - b) (a - b)

remove terms which cancel ((a -b)) from both sides:
a + b = b

convert:
1 + 1 = 1

So, you can see that the sum of the amount they sent you and the
amount they received back _has_ to be the same as the amount they sent
you, and that's what they bill you for.

--
John Fields

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:09:35 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:48:00 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

Aww c'mon - if you multiply a positive voltage by a positive current
you get positive power. If you multiply negative voltage by negative
current you get positive power.

Sorry, Don, you obviously haven't thought this through. Since *all*
their current is returned, I cannot have used *any* of it. Whatever
the voltage might be, multiplying it by zero Amps still gives zero
power!

Paul, perhaps you should be a politician...

What you are charged for is the use of the current as it flows through
your appliances etc. Because the current flows in your appliances it
places a load on their generating plant. Because millions of houses
are also doing the same thing at the same time the load on the
generating plant is enormous and in order to supply the large amount
of current required by all users (yes, even though they do get it back
in the return feed), the generating plant has to be enormous itself.
Now, power stations aren't something you pick off a tree, they have to
be built and maintained and they consume "energy" in order to be able
to generate the large amount of current which flows.

Now even a dill can see that the cost of building and running the
plant has to be paid for and the cost of doing this is usually
amortised over a period of 15 or 20 years and after that it is pure
profit. So you are paying for the current which flows through your
systems to generate heat, cool and cook your food, run your stereo
etc, etc. Now despite your fallacious arguments about supply voltage
summing to zero and the supply authority getting all their current
back after having gone through your house, you can't argue that you
shouldn't be charged purely for no other reason than the law stating
the conservation of energy.

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but may only be changed
from one form to another."

The supply authority is changing one form of energy to another in
order to generate electrical energy and you are changing the energy
they supply into other forms required to generate heat, cooling etc in
your household. I can tell you this, converting energy from one form
to another doesn't come free and not even a politician would be stupid
enough to believe that it does.



Anyway - are you cleaning and refurbishing those amps before you give
them back?

Why should I? That's *their* job. I pay enough!

They wear out, you know.

You mean they like lose their charge after a while? That would make
sense as I've found as years have gone by, I've had to turn the
heating up more and more. The thieving *******s!

Well, you can look at it this way...It's basically a series circuit,
from generator, through all customer houses, and back to the generator.
You may be returning ALMOST all of the current coming into your house,
minus resistive losses, but if you divert that voltage and current
through one of your appliances, the voltage and current (hence power)
will actually be doing some work. Electricity, while being USED in your
house, is like an employee of YOURS...it is doing WORK, so legally you
must pay the worker's wages for work performed. Just be glad you don't
have to pay it's social security taxes, fed and state taxes, health
insurance, worker's comp insurance premiums, 401K contributions, etc.
Starts to make electricity (employee) sound cheap.

Scott


Paul Burridge wrote:



Sorry, Don, you obviously haven't thought this through. Since *all*
their current is returned, I cannot have used *any* of it. Whatever
the voltage might be, multiplying it by zero Amps still gives zero
power!

Huh? It's only 5:30AM here and I just got up but, the ONLY time you
aren't consuming power is at the zero crossing of the voltage and
current sine waves (assuming a purely resistive load where I and E are
in phase). Since you are paying for power, which is P=I X E, during the
negative half cycle, you have, for example, -168 Volts X -1 Amp = +168
Watts...try it on a calculator...negative times a negative is positive.

Scott

Paul Burridge wrote:
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:56:34 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:


You don't get billed for current, you get billed for energy - in the
UK the measure is the kilowatt hour.


Hey, whose side are you on? ;-)


Multiply your voltage by your
current instant by instant, take the average (gives you power) and
multiply that by the duration in hours and you have your consumption.


They don't bill me instant-by-instant; they bill me for the power they
claim I've used over the course of a three-monthly period. Since power
is the product of voltage and current (and I've proved earlier that
both are zero) I'm being charged for electricity that I've not
actually used. The current goes in and out of the house unchanged.
It's all returned to the power company. All I've done is borrow it.
And you can bet that when they get their current back they don't just
dump it to ground; oh no. They re-sell it again and again and again to
other suckers like me. We're all paying multiple sums for the *same*
lousy current that's probably been circulating for years.
The power companies have been scamming us for decades! I can't believe
I've only just woken up to it.