MUNICIPALITY. Prices. MAXIMUM NET PRICE PER K. W. H. (CENTS). 1914. 1913. a month. No wiring. Carbon lamps re- For light: 12 cents net a k. w. h. for first 100 For power: 4 cents net a k. w. h. Arc lights: $5 a month for each light. No wiring. No For power: 4 cents net a k. w. h. for first 500 Street Lighting by Municipal Plants. The statutes relating to municipal light plants prescribe that the excess of the estimated annual expense (including the gross expense of operation, maintenance and repair, interest on the debt created to pay for the plant, depreciation, sinking fund or debt requirements, and loss if any, in the operation of the plant during the preceding year) over the estimated income from sales to private consumers shall be included in the annual appropriations for maintenance and in the tax levy. For this excess, which it must thus raise by taxation, the city or town receives its street and in some cases its public building lighting. In some instances electricity furnished to public buildings is metered, charged at the same rates as to private consumers, and paid out of other appropriations in the same manner as though the plants were privately owned. In some instances also specific appropriations are made for street lighting, presumably with the number and type of lamps to be supplied in view. For these reasons, while it is desirable to know from the standpoint of the city or town as a municipal corporation what it is getting for the money raised for the plant by taxation, and on a basis comparable with the cost to it of lighting its buildings and streets if served by a privately owned plant, such information can be obtained only by estimating the electricity used in public buildings when not measured, and computing the cost per street lamp based on the average number of lights used per day and apportioned between different types of lamps according to the energy theoretically necessary to supply them. In the four pages following, the data used in arriving at these results and the results themselves will be found tabulated. The second table is devised upon the theory that for all its expenditure the municipality receives only its street lighting and the income from its commercial business, and that the cost of the former to the city or town is the difference between such income and the entire cost of carrying on the business. Obviously such cost is affected by the profit or loss on the commercial lighting. The following table shows the number of street lights and their wattage installed on June 30, 1914, and the average number in use throughout the year ending June 30, 1914, with the average number of days and hours the same were burned in the municipalities named: The following table is compiled to indicate, as nearly as may be from the data available, the cost per lamp, for the year ending June 30, 1914, of the electric street lights in the municipalities named, determined by the items shown and upon the average daily number of lights used during the year, as given in the preceding table. Obviously such cost is affected by the profit or loss on the commercial business. The apparent loss in operating is the difference between the operating expense and the income from private consumers. Interest is computed upon the total investment at the beginning of the year, at the rate paid upon the bonds or notes, and depreciation upon the same amount at the rate of 3 per cent. The value of electricity supplied to municipal buildings is allowed at a fair amount, as determined and stated by the respective managers. Whenever the street lights are of different wattages, the total cost obtained in the manner indicated is apportioned to each kind, according to the amount of energy theoretically necessary under average conditions to maintain the lights at the standard candle power. 5 For 5 months only. 8 Wilmington. * Interest and depreciation here stated are the same per cent. of total interest and depreciation as electric plant assets are of the total combined plant, as shown by the books. 4 For 3 months only. 7 North Reading and Lynnfield. Lamps not in use for 8 months, station burned. • Reading. |