Depreciation per kilowatt will equal... $1.68 per K. W. Operating expenses, including labor, re

pairs, oil and waste and insurance, if taken upon the same basis as already existing, will amount to $20,453, equivalent to..... Making a total for a twenty-four-hour run per annum of....

1.51 per K. W.

$8.14 per K. W.

It will be noticed that the operating expenses, as well as the depreciation per kilowatt, in the latter case is very much reduced; and it is a remarkable feature how constant our operating our operating expenses are, even at present, being practically the same with full load as with no load.

In connection with these figures it might be stated that coal used in Montreal and vicinity is what is known as Nova Scotian coal, and costs $3.50 per ton for run of mine,

The writer would also draw your attention to the fact that the capital cost cited in each of the foregoing cases includes money paid for real estate, of which the company owns over some eight million feet, fronting on the rapids, intended at some future date to form the site of a suburban town, and which it is hoped and expected will return the money expended in developing the water power power above

referred to.

CONCLUSIONS

From the foregoing the writer trusts that he has shown that where that where reliable water power can be obtained within reasonable distance from power centres it can be made to produce cheap electric current, to say nothing of the great advantages the city must derive therefrom, not only commercially,

but viewed from a sanitary standpoint as well, as the use of electric power thus generated is the best smoke consumer yet invented.

DISCUSSION

MR. WAGNER: I wish to ask for information on these figures. Are they based on a twenty-four-hour use of the kilowatt capacity of the generators or of the station? In other words, I want to know whether the figures are based on the assumption that the generators are loaded practically at their maximum rated capacity for twenty-four hours for each day in the year. If these figures were based on that assumption, and we took the average load factor of most of our central stations, of from twenty per cent to twenty-five per cent of the maximum load, would it not have increased these costs four or five times, based on the number of kilowatt-hours delivered from the station? I understand that these two costs are based on the kilowatt capacity of the station, and not on the average kilowatts delivered; that average being, say, from twenty to twenty-five per cent of the maximum, which cannot exceed the maximum capacity of the generator.

MR. WALBANK: The cost that I have given you there is based upon the possible output of a plant, independently of the number of hours that it is used. Our capital cost was a stated amount, and we have a certain capacity in electrical generators; by dividing one into the other, you get how much it cost us per horse power to develop. But, so far as twenty-five per cent use of the system is concerned, we hope to run pretty nearly full all the time. It does not cost any more to run during the daytime for power and during the nighttime for the lighting load.

MR. WAGNER: It does not cost any more to do that, but you are trying to perform practically the same service that the existing central stations in large cities do from their steam plants. You have the same service to perform, for lighting and power, over a large city, and supply current for that purpose as it is required; and it is found that the average current thus required is only twenty or twenty-five per cent of the maximum requirement, and the maximum requirement cannot be greater than the maximum capacity of the generators; so that it is a physical impossibility to find a service that will keep your generators loaded. Therefore, the cost of production, per kilowatt, must be based on the cost of production of the kilowatt-hours per year delivered, and not on possible kilowatts, which could be delivered, if you could find people to use your current constantly at all times, at a uniform rate of use.

We

. MR. WALBANK: I believe that, sooner or later, we shall keep our plant running pretty nearly full capacity. There is in use in Montreal at the present time over thirty thousand horse power of steam. have the street railway company, using 5,000 horse power in steam, besides a suburban street railway, using from five hundred to seven hundred horse power. There is also the opening and closing of locks and drawbridges on the Lachine canal, and who knows but in the near future we shall be able to do the towing in this canal. If we chose to sell our power cheaply enough, there are certain manufacturers who would take our power when not required for lighting.

MR. WAGNER: Take, for instance, the best users of power on the average-the machine shops and factories. They use it only an average of ten hours per

day; they do not run at night. In the example which you give of street-railway power plants, the load is very fluctuating, and usually reaches a minimum in the middle of the day and the middle of the night and the maximum in the morning and the afternoon. You cannot with such loads obtain a uniform load on your generators. If these different characters of work might be made to be performed together from the same generators, it would give you a little better average load than any one of them separately; still, they would overlap, as a rule, at the maximum, and that overlap is the element that determines the capacity for which your generators must be reserved.

MR. WALBANK: To get over that, we should give power at lower rates to be used from seven o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon and from seven in the evening until four o'clock in the morning.

THE PRESIDENT: That would not escape an overlap. Suppose you got all the power generated at the present time in the city of Montreal, and plotted a curve; you would find that the curve would start to rise in the winter towards three o'clock and would not go down until about a quarter past five, and at night it would go down to a small percentage of the maximum. That is, if you got every particle of power used in Montreal, including twenty-four-hour power, lighting, pumping, street-railway power and arc lighting, you would find that you had a high maximum in the winter, and it would follow closely the curve of any large central station in the central portion of any city.

MR. WALBANK: During last winter, for instance, our demand for lighting did not begin until four o'clock p. m., and very seldom as early as four o'clock.

MR. WAGNER: You cannot make people use current because it is cheap; they use it when they want it.

MR. WALBANK: We had a contract with a cotton company to run their plant from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon during the winter months, and at any time they wanted the power during the summer months, and if they found that it would pay them to take it they would do so. We could give them power so cheaply that it would pay them That contract would have been closed, except that there was question of a guarantee. They wanted us to be responsible for the firemen cutting wires, and to assume extraordinary responsibility, which we would not do. We offered to sign a contract that any other electric company would sign.

MR. FERGUSON: It seems to me that the figures $10,275 per annum are very small for the operating expenses of such a plant as described by Mr. Walbank. The figures on the cost of the kilowatt-hour are based on full load, running the machinery at full load twenty-four hours a day. That would give an output of 31,000,000 units a year, which is double the output in Chicago, and I am sure we could not begin to operate our plant for anything like that amount. I do not see how it can possibly include any portion of the general expense.

MR. WALBANK: Mr. Ferguson does not understand the point; my paper does not treat of the production of electricity, but the production of power for generating electricity. It is simply the operating expenses of the power station at the Rapids. All that is required to operate that plant to-day is three switchboard men; one day man at the water wheels, one night man at the water wheels and a man to