Art and Energy

The Brighton Museum is staging an exhibition of the work of John Constable which he produced whilst living in the town from 1824 to 1828.  I went because it's a form and period of painting I'm attracted to.  The space is quite low key and does not shout "great art" making it possible to appreciate the pictures for what they are, sensitive and imaginative depictions of Brighton and the surrounding countryside at the start of it's period of expansion.

What I did not expect was an insight into the energy economy of the town before the arrival of the railways.  There are several pictures of beached collier brigs.  After 1840 most Brighton and Hove's coal supply was came from the harbour at Shoreham by rail, but before that a lot of it was landed on the beach and taken to buyers in the town by horse and cart.

The collier brigs were two masted vessels of 100 - 300 tons with a length of between 70 and 90 feet and a small crew, maybe 6 - 10 men.  They mostly worked out of the Tyne taking a cargo of coal outward and returning home in ballast.  Some vessels also carried passengers between the North and London, before the railways this might have been preferable to several days in a coach travelling along rutted roads, at least in fine weather.  Navigational equipment was probably the master's experience and a compass.

At coastal towns like Brighton and Hove which did not have port facilities, the brig was run on to the beach and the cargo unloaded into horse drawn carts using local labour.  When the vessel was empty she was re-floated on the rising tide.  The price realised for the cargo would have depended on the season, the weather and before 1815 the trade could be disrupted by French privateers, this threat may have been used to hike the price.

Coal landed on the beach within the parish boundaries was subject to coal tax.  This explains the location of the Brighton Gas works (1819) just beyond the eastern parish boundary at Black Rock and the Hove Gas works (1825) which is at the extreme west of the town.  These works were located to avoid the coal tax.  Coal tax was abolished around 1870 and was not a factor in the location of electricity generating plant.  From 1820 to 1880 gas was used for street lighting and in  the posher town houses.  After the establishment of electric light companies in Brighton and Hove, gas lighting was displaced, initially by arc lamps, then by incandescent bulbs.

At the turn of the century the demand for coal in Brighton and Hove had greatly expanded.  In 1928 there were four railway goods yards, each of which acted as a base for coal merchants, some of these operated nationally, others were local family businesses.  Going west to east, the goods yards were located at Sackville/New Town Road (Hove), Holland Road (Hove), Cheapside (Brighton) and Kemp Town (Brighton).  With the exception of Cheapside which is close to the main Brighton station, these yards are now industrial estates doing amongst other things, serving the local building trade.

By the 1880s, the railway's coal distribution network was evolving at the same time as the market for coal for electricity generation emerging.  Brighton's first power stations were close to North Road and supplied from the Cheapside yard.  Hove's was at Holland road where it may have had it's own siding for coal deliveries.  At the end of the 19th century, the demand for electricity was growing and city centre locations for industrial plant was neither desirable or practical.    Brighton built a new power station at Shoreham harbour, close to the gas works which had already located, both the gas and electricity works were now supplied directly from the sea by steam engined colliers.

Industry attracts fewer artists and poets than traditional landscapes, seascapes and portraits, but there is one reference in John Masefield's "Cargoes" which is relevant.  I suspect generations of English teachers have hoped to inspire a love of words and rhythm with this, the last verse is:

    Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
    Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
    With a cargo of Tyne coal,
    Road-rails, pig-lead,
    Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

I've always been troubled by the "salt caked smoke stack", maybe I'm too literal, but the verse does invoke the rhythm of a reciprocating steam engine.

Footnote

I wrote this quickly from memory without checking the facts, please feel free to offer corrections.

Wind power close to the city centre

When I first worked on this image of historic windmill sites around Brighton I was more interested in the terrain:.

Most mills are located on ridges or close to the coast to take advantage of the smooth air flow coming off the sea to the southwest.  Equally interesting is that they within the urban parts of Brighton and Hove whose population grew rapidly in the 19th century.  In paintings, wind and water mills are usually depicted in rural settings and most surviving structures are in rural areas where nobody wants a block of flats.  Yet in many big towns, flour milling was an urban industry.  The Moulin Rouge in Paris maybe better known for its performance of selections from the works of Offenbach, but the theatre was built on the site of one of the many windmills providing the Parisians with flour.  19th century milling techniques produced flour with a short shelf life, flour produced in modern plant will keep for several months, thus it made sense to have mills close to the bakeries.

Well into the 20th century, corn was cut in the fields during August and September and then gathered up into sheaves to dry and later stacked in such a way to protect it from the weather.  There it remained until labour was available for threshing to separate the grain from the stalks.  Originally, threshing was done manually and provided employment farm labourers when there was no other work available.  As with many other agricultural tasks, machines were invented to do the work.  During the Second World War, one of the tasks of women in the Land Army was to operate threshing machines which were moved and powered by tractors.

The peak of windmill building took place in the first half of the 19th Century, the graph below was estimated from an article in Wikipedia:

Most mills were built when demand for food in the expanding cities was growing and farming was a prosperous industry.  In the second half of the 19th Century, two trends emerged which were to bring about the demise of wind powered flower milling, both of which are related to the rise of steam power.  Steam ships enabled bulk cargoes to be moved across the oceans cheaply, this allowed the large wheat producing regions of North America to access the British market which in turn led to a fall in prices and a recession in British farming. The ports where the imported grain was landed also had access to coal from the mining areas of North East England and South Wales.  Thus flour milling became one of the industries based on sea ports alongside electricity generation and gas works.

This post is related to my interest in the economics of sustainable energy.  Whilst wind is the only thing that a modern electricity generating wind turbine has in common with a flour producing wind mill, I thought it would be interesting to attempt to understand the economics of windmills.  First, it seems that whilst milling might be seasonal, it was not directly related to agricultural production.   Flour could not be stored for long but grain could, so the mills needed to operate throughout the year.  Secondly, windmills declined because of the lower cost of alternatives, of which the availability of cheap transport was a significant element.  Also, as town expanded, the sites occupied by windmills had greater value as sites for housing.

The early days of Electricity in Hove (4)

The reason for messing with this stuff is to try and get an understanding of the technologies and decisions which have formed our energy economy.  Technology is the driving force, but its implementation in the UK is influenced by legislation.  This itself is significant, suggesting a desire for an ordered society.  Legislation and parliamentary debates  can be both inspiring and depressing.   For example, gas was originally sold by volume, this is intuitive and was not unreasonable in the early days of the industry.  However, it gave no indication of the amount of energy with which the consumer was paying for.  Parliament legislated that gas should be priced according to its calorific value.  During the debate, someone suggested th this would confuse consumers, in reply, it was pointed out that with pricing by volume it was perfectly legal for gas companies to supply air.

The Act which applies to the early days of electricity in England is the Electric Lighting Act, 1882.  This show some foresight on the part of legislators as incandescent light bulbs were just emerging as a viable technology.  The incandescent bulbs required little maintenance and did not foul the atmosphere like gas and oil lamps which they would eventually displace.   Whilst high voltage AC systems were evolving and would  achie dominance within a decade, low voltage DC (often referred to as low pressure) systems were the most common technology used for public supplies at the time.  These  systems were only practical when the distance between the generator and the consumer was short.  Thus many early power stations were located in town centres close to the consumer and ideally near a railway or navigable river from which coal could be supplied.  In it's early days electricity was both a local and an urban business.

The Act covers four aspects of electricity supply, democratic approval, practical problems of providing a supply (e.g. no overhead cables and don't mess with the canals), abuse of markets and ownership.

The act places the administration of the electricity supply with the local authority, which itself could also become a supplier.  Before an electricity supply could be established, meetings had to be held and elected representatives had to approve.  If a potential supplier could not get approval from the local authority there was a provision to seek parliamentary approval.  In practice the local authority had to be involved because they were responsible for the management of the streets which had to be broken up to install cables.  Local authorities had considerable freedom in the way they organised the supply.  They could, subject to controls, allow a private company to provide a supply, but they were also allowed to borrow money and build power stations and create supply networks themselves.  In Brighton, they first electricity company was a commercial enterprise, then the council set up in competition.  In neighbouring Hove, the council opted to pass the undertaking to a private company.  Where a private company had established a supply, local authorities had an option to buy it back for a fair price after 21 years.  This must have been a disincentive for private investors as the Act of 1888 increased this to 42 years.  Random reading of parliamentary debates suggests that there has been a distrust of commercial energy companies for at least a couple of centuries.  Based on very limited research, it seems that municipal gas and electric companies were the preferred option and this is reflected in the 1882 Act.  However, in giving local authorities the power to borrow, it recognised the need for private finance.

Fear of market abuse is reflected in the clauses which prevent the supplier specifying special lamps, the right of anyone living in specified area to a supply and no special deals.  It also gives some protection to the supplier by defining by-passing the meter as theft of electricity and making it an offence to damage equipment.  Meters and similar equipment belonged to the electricity supplier, not the consumer and could not be taken away by bailiffs.

At the same time it protects the Post Office's telegraph monopoly, power networks could not be used to transmit information.  It was realised that electric lighting would eventually displace lamps.  In places where it would become uneconomic for a gas company to maintain a statutory supply, there was provision for the electric company to pay compensation.

The Act is a practical document and it built on the experience of administering the gas industry by incorporating the legislation drawn up in 1847 for gas works.  Even in 1882, there was a lot happening under the streets, there might be pipes for sewerage, water, gas and telegraphs and by adding some more, it was necessary to provide the freedom to move things where necessary, at the expense of the of electricity company and to provide compensation for disturbance.  It was realised that overhead power lines in urban areas were a potential danger, so it was specified that local distribution must use underground cables.

The 1882 Act contributed to an energy economy which is different from that of today.  In 1882 electricity was a luxury product (1 kwh cost approx. £1 in today's money)  with a few well-off consumers which were supplied from generating sets which were small and inefficient, with a name plate rating of a few hundred horsepower, machinery which would not be out of place in the workshop area of a big town.  As demand grew, the size of plant increased and it moved from the town centre towards the coal mines and ports.  By 1948, the industry would be nationalised, this was part of a wider trend.  Many institutions established in second half of the 19th century, such as schools, hospitals, electricity works etc. were administered by some form of local body, a hundred years later, central or remote control was becoming the norm (e.g. the Central Electricity Generating Board).  There merits of central or local control vary according to situation.  Most councils would have had something like an "electric light committee", some more able than others.  This would have provided a larger pool of knowledge and experience than maybe exists today. 

A link to the document is provided at the bottom of the page.  Some parts are clear to the lay reader, others less so  thus my comments should be treated with caution.

Link to legislation:

• Electrict Lighting Act 1882

Thinking about an electric car

Electric vehicles have been around for more than a century, battery trams were tried out in Brighton and other towns around 1890, although in Brighton's case the job was eventually given to a horse. Recently, increasingly larger bits started falling from our aging hatchback and it started sinking into the tarmac outside the house.  It had served us well, it had recovered at least one child from university, carried the detritus of many amateur operatic productions and done my wife's daily commute.  My wife is the main driver, so I opted out of the decision process.  But I did secretly look at electric vehicles.  The attraction of electric vehicles is their low tail pipe emissions, low energy costs and the potential to be integrated into sustainable energy systems.

Left to me, we would have had a Renault Twizy, but I don't spend my weekends trundling hefty opera singers around the country.  My wife chose a small red box which weighs 950 kg and emits 103 gm of CO2 per km.  Electric cars have zero tail pipe emissions, but they rely on smoke stacks, nuclear reactors and wind farms which combine to produce very roughly 0.45 kg/ of CO2 per kwh.  Equally roughly, an electric vehicle might average 0.2 kwh/km which works out at 90 gm of CO2 per km.  It's an improvement, but not a big one.

However, the energy costs are much lower.  The fuel consumption of the red box is quoted as 4.7 l/100 km which at current petrol prices means £5.30/100 km.  For an electric vehicle doing 0.2 kwh/km 100 km and charged off-peak, the cost would be roughly £1.40.

We bought second hand, my perception of new vehicle costs is £10k for a petrol vehicle and £20k for an electric one.  I'm hazy on the costs associated with batteries, but I'm guessing they are the equivalent of petrol vehicle servicing, but I need to know more.  However, you do the sums, it would take a few years to recover the higher front end costs of an electric vehicle from the lower running costs.

So despite my interest in sustainable energy, we ended up with an update on what had before.  This is a personal example, but for sustainable energy systems to win over hearts and minds they must offer similar benefits for similar costs to conventional systems.

Reference:

Brighton Tramways, Robert J. Harley, Middleton Press

The price of house coal

The starting point for this post was some old family accounts which extended, with gaps from the 1920s to the 1940s.  This was augmented by some figures found in the online version of Hansard.  Some local history material provided a human dimension to the numbers.

The graphs should be treated with caution as they are random in both time and location.  House coal can be priced in several ways, my family always discussed it in terms of cost per hundredweight (112 pounds or very roughly 50 kg).  In 1835 it became compulsory to sell coal by weight rather than volume, before that there are references to "chaldrons", this was a volumetric measure which might account for 0.5 - to 1.5 tons.

The economics of coal consumption are complex, at £10/cwt, the energy cost is around 2p/kwh which is lower than for gas or electricity.  However, the "benefit" derived from a kg of coal depends on the efficiency of the device in which it is burnt.  When used in a cooking range, a lot of energy is used just warming up a large lump of iron before the thing is warm enough to boil a kettle for tea.  Early ranges were not insulated, which made them inefficient cooking devices, but a desirable source of warmth in the kitchen, modern solid fuel range cookers are well insulated which minimizes heat loss.  In England, houses were heated with open fires which have a very low efficiency (10 - 20%?) with most of the heat going up the chimney.  From limited research, it seems that the French prefer stoves which use coal more efficiently.

During the 20th century, the overall trend in the "real" price of coal was upwards.  At the end of the 1960s coal began to compete with "North Sea Gas" in the domestic fuel market.  Gas was both cheaper and more convenient than coal and coal's share of the market started to decline.  By the end of the century, coal had become a "niche" product and costs rose as the economies of scale that had been possible faded away.

The retail price of coal has always been subject to wide variations and fluctuations.  In 1795 it was feared that France would invade England and for a time the price of coal was around 55 shillings per chaldron, this would be more than £50/cwt in today's money.  Households purchase coal for the heat it produces when burnt, premium grade Welsh Steam Coal might have a calorific value of more than 30 MJ/kg whilst that of lower grade fuel might be half that. Some of the variation in the price shown on the graphs is due to variation in the grade of coal.

Apart from events in the wider economy, the price of coal was determined by who you were and where you were.  A well-off, well managed household would buy several tons for delivery in large loads during the summer when they would benefit from lower prices.  At the other end of the scale, those on low incomes might have had to buy coal by the stone (14 lb) or lesser quantity and paid a high unit price (there is an analogy here with today's pre-payment meters).   Some coal merchants operated "coal clubs" which allowed fuel costs  to be evenly spread over the year.

Transport was a significant part of the cost of distributing coal from the mines to the consumer, by the late 19th century coal merchants were often clustered around railway goods yards.  The coal merchant was responsible for unloading the trucks, if this was not done within an agreed period, say, three days, the buyer was charged demurrage until the wagon was empty.  In the early part of the century it was not unknown for captains of collier brigs from the Tyne to run their vessels on to the beaches of seaside towns if they thought they could get a better price for their cargo than they would get at a port a few miles down the coast.  If the cargo was discharged at a port, then the buyer would have the cost of transport to the point of use.  There was always a risk that they could be stranded for several days until favourable weather and tide allowed them to re-float.

A wide variety of enterprises were active in the local coal markets, some companies operated across regions, some were local businesses, maybe just a father and son working together with a horse and cart and below them were the barrow boys.  Our family favoured the Co-Op, probably to get the "divi".

A coalman's job was hard and dirty, often it was delivered to the consumer in sacks containing one and a quarter hundredweight (roughly 60 kg).  Large houses would have purpose built coal stores and some town houses had coal cellars which extended under the pavement which could be filled through a hole normally covered by an iron cover.  The difficult ones were small terraces where the coal had to be carried through the house to the scullery, a task which had to completed without upsetting the housewife.

The early days of electricity in Hove (3)

As with previous posts in this series, this one is work in progress and subject to corrections and revisions.

As I mess with this, I realise I am working backwards.  The story starts with an Act of Parliament of 1890 whose objective was to provide electric lighting in Hove, this was to implemented by the Hove Commissioners (what we now call the council), who formed an "electric light committee".  This first met on Saturday, 26-Apr-1890.

At the meeting on Thursday, 11-Dec-1890 a plan was beginning to form.  It was resolved that the best course of action would be to negotiate with a responsible company to erect buildings and plant and to lay mains in order to supply electricity as required.  It seems that they had considered three options, a) the council would take on the construction and operation of the facility which would be financed by a mortgage on the rates, b) the council would provide the plant and get a contractor to operate it and c) get a private company to finance, build and operate, this being the preferred option.  It was felt that this project was not appropriate for a town council.  The first step was to find a suitably qualified electrical engineer to prepare specifications and advise on terms and conditions of a contract with a company as proposed.

Mr. R.E. Crompton was selected for the task at a meeting on 2-Jan-1891.  This was a logical choice, Mr. Crompton had a proven ability with both arc and incandescent lighting and his company Crompton and Co. was a major manufacturer and contractor.

These deliberations were going on against a backdrop of international and local evolutions in the electricity supply industry.  This was the time of the "battle of the currants".  On one side was low voltage DC generation and distribution, in very crude terms there was direct connection between the consumer's appliances and the dynamos at the power station.  These systems worked well for small communities clustered around the power station.  It was opposed by promoters of high voltage AC systems.  In these the AC generated at the power station is stepped up to a high voltage for transmission and stepped down again for distribution to the consumer, the key component is the transformer.  Ultimately, the high voltage AC systems were to triumph.  At the local level the neighbouring Brighton and Hove Electric Light company was seeking to expand.  At this time Brighton had established an electricity supply four years earlier and had experience with both AC and DC systems.

Mr. Crompton drew up his report and this was considered and this was considered on several occasions and on 8-Jun-1891 a decision was made to adopt the low voltage DC option.  It is clear from the minutes that they had discussed the AC alternative, but Mr. Compton recommended the DC route because Hove was a compact borough and there would be no problems with transmission.  It was pointed out that several London boroughs had adopted this solution as had parts of New York and Berlin.  Mr. Compton's report  effectively became basis of the specification which against which bids would be invited and a prospectus for potential shareholders.

The suggested site was bounded on the west by Holland Road with 135 feet of frontage on what is now Davigdor Road.  To the north was a railway goods yard which was home to several coal merchants.  The plan was to have a siding laid so that coal could be delivered by rail.

The plant in the power station was intended to be implemented in phases.  When complete, the main elements were to be:

• 5 Lancashire boilers rated at 160 p.s.i
• 3 250 HP Willans dynamo sets
• 3 100 HP Willans dynamo sets
• 1 120 cell lead acid accumulator capable of supplying 600 amps for a short period.

Dividing the generating capacity between 100 and 250 HP units suggests that demand was expected to vary during the day.

The plant may have been arranged like this:

The site may have been long and thin making it necessary to use the space efficiently.

The costs for the initial phase with two boilers, three dynamo sets and an accumulator were estimated to be:

• Plant: £8,297
• Buildings: £3,000
• Mains: £12.844
• Total: £24,141

The cost of the complete scheme was around £50,000.

The public street lighting commitment was for 14 ornamental lampstands along the sea front, each with a 10 amp arc lamp mounted 26 feet above the street which was rated at 2,000 candlepower, the total running costs for 2186 hours were estimated to be £280/year.  Even in 1890, Hove was a sizeable town, so this was not a serious attempt to displace gas lighting.  It seems that the principal objective was to sell electricity to commercial and domestic consumers.  The electricity for these lights was to be supplied at half price, or 4d/unit, the retail price being 8d/unit (more than £1 in today's money).

The report reads like it has been written to promote a scheme, it suggests that after seven years, 400 houses would be supplied with electricity and profits could be £5,000/year.  It is not unknown for prospectuses to over estimate demand, however, in this case, it was an underestimate, after two years of operation, 200 households were connected.

The minutes of the Electric Light committee meeting on 3-Sep-1891 stated that the text of an invitation to bid for the project had been drafted and an agreement to purchase the Holland Road site had been produced together with an application to borrow £1,400.

On 27-Oct-1891, proposals were received from:

• The Electric Power and Storage Company
• The Brush Electrical Engineering Company
• Crompton and Company
• The Brighton and Hove Electrical Lighting Company

A few days later, a bid from the Planet Electrical Engineering Company was received, as this had been submitted on time, but delivered late, it was considered.

Only the bid from Crompton and Company was considered to meet the requirements of the commissioners and on 11-Feb-1892, a deed of transfer of the undertaking to Compton and Company was approved.

Energy Alternatives

The electricity industry took shape in the 1880s.  Initially, it was a "luxury" product consumed by high income households.  Large establishments might have had their own generating plant, but rapid growth in the demand for electricity started when companies were formed to supply consumers from a local power station.  Either by choice or circumstance, many of these companies became owned by local councils, with a little stretch of the imagination, they could be described as being owned and controlled by the community they served.  By the start of the 20th century demand for electricity had grown and the original small power stations with reciprocating steam engines located in residential areas were too small and inefficient to meet the demand, these were displaced by large steam turbine plants located close to a coal supply such as a port, railway depot or even the mine itself.  This became the model used by the industry for a century and it worked well, energy will never be cheap, but its rare to flick a light switch and have nothing happen.  Big nuclear power stations fit into this model.

There are big differences between the late 19th and early 21 centuries, for political and environmental reasons it is desirable to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and many people are uncomfortable with nuclear power.  However, the technologies available make it possible to consider alternatives to the big generator model, for the foreseeable future big power stations will have a role, but it may be possible to stem their growth and possibly even displace some of them.

These comments are based on personal observations, but they may have some wider relevance:

• Energy consumption can be reduced without a drop in living standards.  In our case, we have steadily migrating to LED lighting, 20 watt compact fluorescent lights have are being replaced by 10 watt or smaller LEDs.  As appliances have died of old age, energy consumption has a factor in deciding on the replacement.  The old washing machine consumed 1.5 to 2.0 kwh/wash, the new one typically uses 0.25 to 0.70 kwh.  There maybe environmental benefits, but our electricity bill is £23/month and falling.
• Storage is a potential game changer in the way the industry works.  Demand for electricity peaks in the early evening when families are home cooking, staring at a screen or doing homework, at present supply and distribution is set up to meet the peaks and troughs of daily life, if every house had even a small amount of storage, maybe as little as 2kwh, it could be possible to run the generators under constant load with each household having a time slot for charging its batteries.  Grocery deliveries have made us familiar with delivery time slots, doing the same thing for electricity is not such a big step.  Back to economics, there is the potential for buying electricity at off-peak rates (7p instead of 15p/kwh), so there is some potential upside for the consumer.  Storage also helps integrate energy from wind farms in to the energy economy.
• Back in 1900, if you wanted to generate your own electricity the main options were steam or gas engines, water wheels were an option for those living near a river and wind generation was still being explored.  Even under an cloudy English sky, solar panels can make a contribution.  At present, the economics of home generation are geared towards getting a return-on-investment, however, in conjunction with storage, there is the potential to displace some gas fuelled generating capacity.  Peak demand is in the evening when the sun does not shine bright, if energy generated during the day can be stored for use in the evening, then the load on the grid can be smoothed.  This requires some creative economics.  Some rough calculations suggest that our house's grid dependency would be decreased by two solar panel mounted somewhere other than on the roof.
• Cars and vans contain reliable combined heat and power systems, a 2kw alternator provides electricity some of which is stored in the battery and waste heat from the cooling system is used to keep the cabin warm.  Extracting the appropriate components and packaging them as a consumer product might produce something costing less than £1,000, such an installation could produce heat and power during the winter months. These could be gas fuelled.  In the context of a car, this is established technology.  One of the incentives for the development of petrol and diesel engines was the limitation on consumption of town gas.  Any loss in efficiency in electrical generation could be compensated for by the use of waste heat.

Some of this stuff is fanciful and no doubt others could expand the list but the point is there are alternatives to big power station model.