Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI WHOLESALE RATES AND QUANTITY DISCOUNTS . Wholesale rates are presumably differential. Quantity discounts. The difference between wholesale and retail prices not merely a question of quantity. Continuous character of electricity supply—no true whole-sale. " Quantity discounts " not a matter of form. Need of segregating initial or consumer cost, which is inappreciable above 200 kilowatt hours a month. Collection of such cost from adjacent size classes. Actual range of pure quantity discounts may be two-thirds or more. Such discounts properly apply to the kilowatt-hour element but may affect others. Power for transportation companies a special case. Large pure quantity discounts specious rather than sound. Intensiveness of use and density of consumption not the same as large quantity. Load-factor and density-factor considerations should be dealt with explicitly. Large power rates have been less regulated than others. The competition of isolated plants. Bargaining power the foundation of undue concessions. Comparative advantages of the private plant. Aggregate isolated plant capacity probably as great as that of central stations. " Merchandizing" contracts for operators of tenement and loft buildings. Concession to the landlord as regards the wholesale minimum. Possibly other means of dissimulating concessions to those with special bargaining power. Bearing of the presence of isolated plants upon density-factor economy and upon the cost of transmission and distribution. A case where distribution is not a general or joint cost. Concentration as a means of wartime economy. The opportunity for diversification and intensification of use among small consumers. Tendency to lump all small consumers under a general rate. The social importance of morselized power supply...