Cheaper Electric Cheaper Electricity Bills

It is a bit like the situation with train companies. They may not have quite enough capacity at rush hour, so they offer discounts at off-peak hours.

Of course, they could just get more trains, but they are very expensive, and if the usage is shuffled a little, it is enough. The problem is simple: you cannot store passenger space. You cannot use empty passenger space from the night during rush hour.

Electricity generation is quite similar: we cannot do much to store electricity. We pretty much have to use it as we produce it, and whatever equipment we have, that is the limit of what we can produce at one time. If electricity companies can encourage people to use power at non-peak times, they can use their existing facilities to provide it, thereby reducing the maximum requirements at peak time, otherwise it may mean building new and expensive additions.

This is not quite the whole story, since you can have a nationwide grid that shares power across large geographical areas, allowing plants in, say California to get power from, say Maine when main no longer needs so much and California does.

Hi! Doing a survey for my class and think itd be good to ask you lot!

Is it a good thing to have new technology that provides cheaper electricity for the consumer?

I need business related answers aswell as society based answers.. all answers will go in a table to develop a strong debate.

Thankyou

Good and Bad.

Good because consumer disposable income will go up as price of electricity fall. This means that they have more money to spend on other things they like.

Bad because this will lead to over use of the resources. If electricity is cheap, people will less likely to mind leaving their computer/tv on when they are not using it. I.e LESS incentive to save electricity. Therefore, it will be bad for the environment (global warming).

Hope this helps.