On Fri, 18 Nov 2022 14:31:42 -0700, Mike Thompson <miketh...@gmail.com> wrote: > Technically what the electric utility is selling is energy, not power. One > gets billed for kilowatt-hours, not kilowatts.
Well, it depends on the country. Over here in Croatia, you have to pay for max power too (by choosing which power consumer category you want to be in; lower priced ones are limited to lower max power, e.g. 6kW; higher tiers allow more power, but cost more) But yes, most of pricing is based on amount of electrical energy used (which is more properly measured in Joules, or if one wants to be SI-pedant in kg*m^2*s^-2, but power companies seem to stick to kWh nomenclature which actually does make some types of calculations easier) Also, if being advanced consumer with higher power limits, you ALSO (in addition to two things above) have to pay for reactive power too, according to cos(phi) (beware of those inductive loads like compressors in air conditioners / heat pumps! Cheapest tiers luckily are waiwed from this payment, at least) > colloquially, the terms power and energy when it comes to electric > utilities are used interchangeably, although "power company" seems to be > favored vs. "energy company" in the US where I live. If we want to be > A more general issue is that often utilities provide more than one > service. Xcel, which operates in parts of the US, provides both > electricity and natural gas (the latter which is technically energy too). yes, "power" in that context usually implies "electrical energy". However, "energy company" is not restricted to electrical energy. Over here in Croatia, another popular energent is natural gas. In fact, many of "electrical energy providers" are also "natural gas providers" over here, so such narrowly specified tag as "office=power_utility" would make mapping them incorrect. So I would find sticking to tag with a wider meaning (like existing "office=energy_supplier") preferable. Or if we desparately need a change, then go with even more inclusive tag like "office=public_utility", and then use subtag (like existing https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:utility) to map details in what business(es) it is exactly. > In a nearby city to where I live, the city owned utility provides > electricity, water, sewer, and internet. Agreed, see suggestion above. Out of curiosity, do you know how is it mapped currently in OSM? > On Fri, Nov 18, 2022 at 12:56 PM Dimitar <osm.dimitar...@gmail.com> wrote: >> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Power_utility_office) >> to introduce a new tag for power utility offices (office=power_utility) >> and deprecate the existing one (office=energy_supplier). The rationale >> behind this idea is that energy_supplier can be confusing to most people. -- Opinions above are GNU-copylefted. _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
