ELECTRICAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION

Electrical energy consumption is the electrical energy use by all the various loads on the power system. Consumption also includes the energy used to transport and deliver the energy. For example, the losses due to heating conductors in power lines, transformers, and so on is considered consumption.

Electricity is consumed and measured in several different ways depending on whether the load is residential, commercial, or industrial, and whether the load is resistive, inductive, or capacitive. Electric utilities consume electricity just to produce and transport it to consumers. In all cases, electrical energy production and consumption is measured and accounted for. The electrical energy produced must equal the electrical energy consumed.

IN RESIDENTIAL ELECTRIC CONSUMPTION: the larger users of electrical energy are items such as air conditioning units, refrigerators, stoves, space heating, electric water heaters, clothes dryers, and, to a lesser degree, lighting, radios, and TVs. Typically, all other home appliances and home office equipment use less energy and, therefore, account for a small percentage of total residential consumption. Residential consumption has steadily grown over the years and it appears that this trend is continuing. Residential energy consumption is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh).

COMMERCIAL ELECTRIC CONSUMPTION: is also steadily growing. Commercial loads include mercantile and service, office operations, warehousing and storage, education, public assembly, lodging, health care, and food sales and services. Commercial consumption includes larger-scale lighting, heating, air conditioning, kitchen apparatus, and motor loads such as elevators and large clothes handling equipment. Typically, special metering is used to record peak demand (in kilowatts) along with energy consumption in kWh.

INDUSTRIAL ELECTRIC CONSUMPTION: appears to be steady. Industrial loads usually involve large motors, heavy duty machinery, high-volume air conditioning systems, and so on, for which special metering equipment is used such as power factor, demand, and energy. Normally the consumption is great enough to use CTs (current transformers) and PTs (potential transformers) to scale down the electrical quantities for standard metering equipment.

VERY LARGE ELECTRICAL ENERGY CONSUMERS: (i.e., military bases, oil refineries, mining industry, etc.) often use primary metering facilities to measure their consumption. These large consumers normally have their own sub-transmission and or primary distribution facilities including substations, lines, and electrical protection equipment.