The coming electricity crisis.

The government has finally taken steps to head off the coming crisis in electricity peak loadings by implementing plans to decrease usage.
Householders have been invited to take advantage of an offer to replace all old incandescent light globs with the new, fluorescent globes. A work crew will call on all homes taking up the offer and replace every globe in the house - and at the same time replace old water wasting shower heads with new, improved models that use less water - and this is at no cost to the householder. The added benefit is that this will reduce running costs for the recipient.

Unfortunately, despite this plan electricity use per household continues to increase. The popularity of wide screen HD television sets use more power - and most of these models have a stand-by mode that is less efficient than turning them off at the power point. The increasing incidence of computers in homes is also an added drain on power.

Perhaps the biggest new power user is the attraction of household air conditioning. Cheaper models from China combined with hotter summers is seeing more homes air conditioned.

There is a rumour that the government is considering a plan to require all new air conditioning to be connected to a separate metering arrangement - similar to the off-peak controls that apply to hot water systems. These offer power at a reduced rate in exchange to water heating being timed to periods of lesser demand.

The advantage would be putting control in the hands of the electricity suppliers. In times of an excessive hot day when power is peaking at critical levels the supplier would be able to shut down domestic air conditioning on a rotating basis - suburb by suburb - to ease the chance of blackouts.

It seems to be an admission that power demand will exceed manufacturing capacity until decisions are made on additional power supply - and whether this will be by way of new power stations or the introduction of such renewable measures such as wind, wave or solar.

The only thing that is absolutely certain is that in the short term the cost of electricity will be subject to regular and substantial cost increases !