The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-04-21
Power Development

Edward Soukap, superintendent Of
the Commercial department of the
! Iowa Railway and Light company Of
Cedar Rapids had for his paper the
subject of Power Development Meth
DDS for Iowa Central Stations" The
following extracts are from his
paper:
The advantages to be derived by
central stations in building up power
load have been SO impressed upon, us
during the past few years that it is
often interesting to pause and view
our efforts and success in this direc-
ton. The problem before most Iowa
central stations has probably been to
find sufficient number OF prospects
to devote their efforts to, this being
particularly true of the smaller towns.
Iowa is primarily an agricultural state
and the industrial field is very limited,
in fact manufacturing on large
scale is found only in few OF the
larger cities. These conditions natur-
ally work against the power salesman
and confine his attention largely to
the small non-manufacturing user,
and to the development of the heat
ing device business. In most cases
this combination OF lighting load,
small power load and heating load has
been successfully promoted, making
on a profitable basis.
A good gauge of the success Of
power Developing efforts is the daily
load curve. By comparing the curves
at regular intervals very good idea
Of the progress made can be had.
This has been the subject OF much
discussion in the technical papers and
some remarkable results have been
shown along this line. A few years
ago the average daily load curve TAX
en- In winter showed very small load
during the day, with dip at noon, a
rapid rise at 800 p. M, to peak and
then gradually falling off until after
midnight, when practically no load
was shown. Now, good curve shows
healthy load all day, with slight dip
at noon and but little night peak,
making an almost straight line, drop
ping of during the night. The prin-
cipal effect of this filing out the val
ley Of the curve Is a marked economy
in the production Of power, enabling
to generate at rate low enough to
undertake supply Of power prof1tably
to the largest power consumers. At
the same time the original investment.
is spread out over a larger area and
the fixed charges per unit Of output
are reduced. The in fact are the
objects to be attained in the campaign
for power business and once this re-
lation between power sales and oper-
ating costs is understood it becomes
apparent why SO much energy and
effort has been devoted to this pur-
pose. To attain this result every GEN.
trail station should pursue an active
policy to build up power load among
all classes of consumers.
Reliability Of Service.
Before any real measure Of success
in building Of power load can be OBJ
tanned. the reliability of the service
furnished must be assured and the
confidence of the public built up. 1t
must first be demonstrated that rea-
sonably continuous service can be
kept up-people are apt to judge you
by the lighting service you give. and
no opportunity should be lost in max
ing It evident that your lighting SER
vice is reliable. II your lights go out
occasionally, due to neglect. the manu-
facturer will rightly. believe that your
power service Will also be neglected I!
and he will hesitate, even though your
price is favorable. Also the commun-
ity must have confidence In the men
back of the enterprise and in its rem
rssentatives, confident that they nos
sess the disposition and the means to
take proper care of the requirements
of the public. / believe that most of