Abstract
The financial success of the Central Electricity Board was contingent upon a rapid and sustained expansion in the sales of electricity, since the benefits of concentrating generation on the more efficient stations were, by themselves, insufficient to justify the expensive investment in the Grid schemes. For financial viability it was necessary for sales of electricity to grow sufficiently to load up the spare capacity, which had formerly been necessary for isolated operations but could by the mid-1930s be brought into fuller productive use because of the lower safety margins required under Grid operation. In the longer run, also, the Grid could meet any additions to load more cheaply because of the economies of large-scale investment which it facilitated. In the confidential memoranda which the Board propared for each regional Grid scheme, therefore, projections of the growth of sales in each area played a crucial part in the Board’s financial planning of the Grid tariffs.1 During the deepening industrial depression of 1929–32 the Board were particularly worried that they might fall short of financial targets because of the failure of the load to grow with sufficient rapidity; and CEB officers were continuously involved in discussions of methods of promoting the growth of load with the officers of the major supply undertakings in each regional Grid scheme, and with the undertakings collectively in the National Consultative Committee.
… the very fact that yesterday something which was regarded as a marvel of science is today looked upon as a common-place and indispensable service, throws upon us the responsibility not only of developing that service to the fullest degree, but of developing it also at such a reasonable cost that the fullest possible use can be made of it.
Sir Archibald Page, CEB Chairman, Proceedings of the National Electrical Convention, 1935, p. 20
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Notes on the Text
F. W. Purse, in discussion of E. H. E. Woodward and W. A. Carne, ‘An Analysis of the Costs of Electricity Supply and its Application in Relation to Various Types of Consumers’, JIEE, vol. 71 (1932) p. 894.
E.g. C. Barman, ‘Nothing to be Ashamed Of, Architectural Review, November 1933;
A. Wilson, ‘The Strategy of Sales Expansion in the British Electricity Supply Industry between the Wars’, in L. Hannah (ed.), Management Strategy and Business Development (1976).
C. T. Melling, ‘Commercial Development of Electricity Supply as a Consumer Service’, JIEE, vol. 94, part I (1947) p. 562.
British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers’ Association, The Electrical Industry in Great Britain (1929) p. 152.
E.g. J. M. Kennedy and D. M. Noakes, ‘An Analysis of the Costs of Electricity Supply and Distribution in Great Britain, with some Suggestions as to the Cause of and Remedies for the Slow Rate of Development’, JIEE, vol. 73 (1933) pp. 103–4;
see e.g. J. A. Sumner, ‘Modern Factors affecting Electricity Costs and Charges’, JIEE, vol. 18 (1937) p. 435;
D. J. Bolton, ‘Electricity Demand and Price’, JIEE, vol. 82 (1938).
see e.g. R. P. Sloan, ‘Development in the Uses of Electricity’, Transactions of the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, vol. 45 (1929) p. 371.
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see L. D. Taylor, ‘The Demand for Electricity: A Survey’, Bell Journal of Economics, vol. 6 (1975).
Calculated from data in C. H. Feinstein, National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965, (Cambridge, 1972) pp. T25, T66–7.
E.g. D. J. Bolton (‘Electricity Demand and Price’, JIEE, vol. 82 (1938) p. 195).
F. H. Dennis, Electricity — Public or Private Monopoly? (1945) p. 143.
E.g. Tucker, ‘Memorandum on Electricity Prices’, 10 October 1933, in POWE 13/62.
Modern general equilibrium notions can be traced back to H. Hotelling, ‘The General Welfare in Relation to Problems of Taxation and Railway and Utility Rates’, Econometrica, vol. 6 (1938) and beyond.
See, generally, M. V. Posner, Fuel Policy: A Study in Applied Economics, (1973).
see e.g. H. Hobson in JIEE, vol. 71 (1932) p. 894.
E.g. P. Schiller, ‘Towards the “Correct” Domestic Multi-Part Tariff’, JIEE, vol. 90, part 1 (1943) p. 328.
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H. C. Fraser, Chairman’s address, North Midlands Centre, JIEE, vol. 78 (1936) pp. 44–8;
H. Manley Roberts, ‘The Grid and the Industrial Load’, JIEE, vol. 78 (1936) pp. 40–3.
Political and Economic Planning, Report on the Gas Industry, (1939) p. 50;
Electrical Development Association, Street Lighting by Electricity (1933)
Electrical Development Association, Warming Buildings by Electricity (1933) EDA 1183.
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Hannah, L. (1979). Commercial Expansion and the Power Load. In: Electricity before Nationalisation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03443-7_5
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