On 12 Feb 2007 11:12:27 -0800, wrote:

This also means that you have eliminated the normal full on heating
mode of the oven and reduced it to 1/3 of that. Which means now
everyone has to wait 3X as long for the oven or burner to warm up,
which few people are going to put up with. After that, the oven or
burner will be cycling randomly anyway and the sum of them all cycling
randomly is the same And presumably, this cooking load comes late in
the day, like 6PM+, which is after industrial/commerical use is
decreasing. With all the other loads I fail to see how this is going
to make any difference in the generating capacity needed to meet peak
demand or save the utiltiy even 5cents. It will mean a lot of ****ed
off users though, who can't get their oven hot in a reasonable time.

No, please go back and re-read what I said; to whit:

"We might expect the typical household oven to operate at full power
for the first ten minutes or so, then cycle on perhaps one third of
the time thereafter..."

Followed by:

"If all 100,000 ovens were energized at the same time, we would expect
this load to be 300 MW. We're assuming, of course, that AS EACH OF
THESE OVENS COME UP TO TEMPERATURE, the actual load at a 33% duty
cycle, would be closer to 100 MW, and since these ovens are NOT all
turned on at the same time, a coincidental peak of 100 MW is probably
within spitting distance of the mark...."

So there are two key points he

a) the load on our utility during the suppertime peak is minimized
due to the cycling of these elements at what I had estimated
to be 33% and, secondly,

b) due to the fact these ovens are not all turned on at precisely
the same time, the impact of that first ten-minute start-up
is thereby diminished.

Nowhere did I say these ovens would operate at reduced power upon
start-up. Each could continue to operate at full power for as long it
takes to come up to temperature, then drop to the lowest wattage
required to maintain a constant set temperaturer; if the oven element
is rated at 3,000 watts and it normally cycles on one-third of the
time, then it's fair to say a constant 1,000 watts is all that's
needed to maintain a steady temperature from this point forward.
There would be absolutely no inconvenience to the consumer whatsoever
and the utility would still benefit from reduced aggregate load.

So, you have just as many ovens running longer. Unless you have
proof that ovens are causing a peak demand that results in either
higher capital cost for generators to meet peak capacity or are
causing the need to kick in some higher cost energy source during
dinner time, this is just a pipe dream.

You claim these ovens would run longer but as I indicated above, they
won't. In any event, according to U.S DOE EIA, the generating
technology with the lowest capital cost would be a 230 MW advanced
combustion turbine at a cost of $US367.00 per kW (O&M and T&D extra).

Source
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assu...6).pdf#page=77

Thus, if we can effectively reduce peak demand from by just ***ONE***
MW, the capital savings to the utility is a minimum of $367,000.00 US
($436,730.00 CDN); at 67 MW, the savings amount to $CDN 29.3 million.
To this you would add the additional operational and maintenance costs
(and this *is* the single most expensive way to generate electricity
by conventional means), plus the added transmission and distribution
expenses. Also, bear in mind, the utility continues to sell the same
amount of energy as before, so there's no resulting loss in revenue,
BUT it does get to pocket all these other savings.

Cheers,
Paul