Energy Bills

I have to disagree, a 'unit' or a kWhr is a very well defined unit of measurement....

As is a coulomb.... so you would like to be charged for exactly the electricity you use?

Could you explain in what units you would accept as being exact?

John.

In electrons?

How many electrons are in 1 KW Hr?

Jonathan

An Ampere is equal to 6.242 X 10^18 electrons moving at uniform velocity through a defined cross sectional area in 1 second. This is the flow of charge.(Current)

Watts are a measure of Power, Power is measured in Joules/second. Since this is so small, they use Kilowatthour.

If you want to know the electron flow for that time, do the math.

Sorry - But 1 Ampere is not necessarily 6.242 x 10^18 electrons!

Correct, but for this it will do. Do you really need to know the exact amount of electrons? Have fun with that!

And no, I am not a member of the club, But I love the show.

I am not a number, I am a man

Thankyou for that. Kind regards - do well.

To make this simple,electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is produced or consumed, and is measured in watts.

I fully understand what a Watt of energy is supposed to be but what exactly does it consist of and is it always the same.

We probably need to go back to the very beginning and check on the very fundamentals of electricity measurements. A minimum consistant quantity and quality of supply needs to be reassessed in this 21st century. I am sure the technology is available.

I realise that much more information ,than just assumed to be too basic,is needed. As suggested,going back to fundamentals of electricity measurement is essential.

Your sentences, " A minimum consistant quantity and quality of supply needs to be reassessed in this 21st century. I am sure the technology is available." are very significant.If you can explain more on this,it will be very helpful.

Hello. Thank you for your response. Just as garages are given a 5% margin to work within due to evaporation of fuels I wondered how accurate our energy accounts were? It seems that the energy corporations should make an greater effort to explain to us consumers exactly ehat it is that we are purchasing. If these products electricity and Gas vary how do we know from reading our fuel bills that this has occurred or what effecxt it is going to have on our electrical or gas equipment. There are a large number of different gases in the regulated Natural gas and they all have an impact on the combustability of the gas in the workplace and home. Just for instance - What is the acceptable level of Formaldehyde emissions from combustion of Gas?

Generally we need further informatoiion not just from a point of view of casts and values but also from our health standpoint. Just really interested. Thanks

A watt is not a measure of energy, it's a measure of power = energy per unit time. kWh is a measure of energy. Charge as on an electron is something different again, measured in coulomb (C). One electron has charge ~ 1.6*10^-19 C, so there are ~ 2.42*10^18 electrons for 1 C, as somebody posted.

One kWh = 3600 joule doesn't on it's own relate to a number of electrons. If the voltage drop is one volt it's 3600*2.42*10^18 = 2.25*10^22, if it's 1000 volt it's 2.25*10^19.

In any case, you don't get to keep the electrons, the same number flow out of the appliance as flow in. It's because they drop through a voltage difference you get the benefit.

Incidentally, if the electron charge 1.6*10^-19 C is multiplied by Avogadro's number 6*10^23 molecules per gram.mol, we get ~ 96500 C = 1 Faraday, the charge needed to deposit the gram.equivalent of a substance in electrolysis.

Another interesting thing - though a coulomb is a very small unit in terms of electrolysis - it takes 96500 of them to liberate e.g. 8 gm of oxygen, in terms of electrostatic repulsion, two 1C charges 1m apart repel each other with a force ~ 9*10^9 newton, nearly a million tonnes!

Ooow off topic but have to ask T-man are you a member of the 6 of 1 club?

The Prisoner series?

IMHO the concept of having to know EXACTLY how many electrons passed by the measuring point for fair billing is a little like wanting to know how many hydrogen and carbon molecules went into your gas tank, or how many digital pulses went down the DSL line to bring you this message. The answer would be a study in irrelevance, let alone futility. We pay so little PER ELECTRON that if you were off by 10,000,000,000,000 it would amount to less money per year that you just burned off reading this message.

Hi There

I agree, however we still do not get billed in a way that we can decide whether or not the account being billed is accurate. How do we know that it is correct is all I am asking, or are we on a trip down memory lane along with evangelicals expected to excersise our faith? I really do not think so. You better believe it!

Reminds me of when I tried MySpace for about 2 weeks. A guy tried to argue with me saying that the calculus was a method of approximation and inexact. What a waste of time. Sometimes you just have to know when not to bother to even comment. By the way, anyone know how many faries can fit on the head of a pin? Can calculus be used to estimate that?

There is a good joke about this very subject.

A mathematician and an engineer were both standing 20 feet away from a pretty girl when they were asked by a colleague "If you could only walk half the distance to the girl every 5 minutes what would you do?" The mathematician exclaimed "I will stand right here because I can conclusively prove that I'll never reach her", whereas the engineer said, "I agree, but I can get close enough for practical purposes."

Well put!! What is it about today? There seem to be so many posts throughout CR4 that are over the top. Elsewhere, someone wants all the details about SCR's.

Just for the record, and, because remarkably no one has mentioned it yet: power is the product of voltage and current. If you tried to fix a price based on "current hours" you'd end up paying ~twice as much for power in the US as the UK.

On an even lighter note: with AC the number of electrons "in" and "out" averages out every thirtieth (US) or twenty fifth (UK) of a second. Even if the mains was DC there would be an analogy between the electron argument and the point often made in the "men's room" after several beers ----- "You only hire it".

Maybe that is why he wants to pay by the electron. If you figure they take back every electron they give you, maybe his bill should always be 0? That is why you don't pay for electrons, you pay for the work they do.

Yeah - but what are you hiring and how much is an approximate bill

All right then, think of it like this. The power company has a generator that it has to run (feed energy), that costs money. There are losses involved in transmitting power over the lines (in simple terms, they "leak" energy by getting hot - i did say SIMPLE TERMS), that essentially costs money too. Take the cost to feed the generator plus the cost of the lost energy plus the cost of maintaining all this stuff and then mark it up by some amount that the market will pay.

Then with AC power there's power factor (voltage vs current waveforms vary in phase) to consider... oh how the details goe on...

If you want specifics, and then want to be able to understand them and improve them, go to university for about 8 years or so and stop being such a troll.

ooooooooooooh - presumably you too are a victim of our conventional university system breeding death to thinkers. how sad we are! All the best. From another victim. I am really just interested in why our energy costs what it does. Thanks

Our energy costs consumers what it does because we are willing to pay for it in lieu of going without. Try living for a week, heck a day without using any electricity. Current rates are a bargain for what they enable. The only reason it doesn't cost more is due to regulation. Regulation also increases the costs for the producer. If you were to get your wish of even tighter regulation with some type of super accurate meter, you would have to pay those costs as well and your bill would rise further.

Hi GUEST

The issues were - Is the account accurate and secondly what exactly are we buying. Cost was not the real issue. Thanks anyway.

Hi Dig deep.... I think we're going to have to agree that the main source of errors in billing and supply of power is going to be in the measurement of that supply....

I'm not sure what accuracy an electric meter is but I'd hazard a guess at not being much better than a few percent....

For a gas meter its probably worse.... as the gas meter is outside and with temperature changes etc... etc... gas flow measurement is difficult to get to ½% accuracy in a calibration lab, so outside with a cheap meter....

I think you'd be lucky to get 5% accuracy.... The calorific content of the gas is usually unchanging plus or minus a couple of percent....

Mind you, paying for your water by water meter is another interesting problem.... But perhaps I shouldn't start another line of questioning...??

John.

Many thanks. Jonathan

Yes it is, technically, but like it was said in the joke, "Close enough for practical purposes".