Electricity

On Friday when I was wating in line for Mantis I was talking to my friends, we wondered: "How much is CP's electric bill?" With so many power consuming rides including WT their bill must be insane. So If anyone knows, It'd be really neat to know how much they pay for power.

-thanks
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"Life is like a roller coaster;enjoy it."
Magnum rides: 20
Wicked Twists: 5
MF rides: 13

If you *really* wanted to know, you can contact investor relations for Cedar Fair, L.L.P., and they'd certainly have the info available.

I had an annual report that probably quoted it somewhere, but I lost it the same day it arrived. It was an interesting read... if you're into accounting. ;o)

I'm sure it probably increased substancially this year with WT! :) At least there isn't any talk of CP closing early or not turning on any lights like a certain park to the east! ;)

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

I was wondering just the other day if anyone has actually sat down and figured out how many dollars it costs to launch WT each time. I'm sure someone has actually figured it out, just never has been disclosed I suppose.

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Pearl Jam + Cedar Point=Heaven on earth.

I wonder if cedar point forgets to pay the bill...do they shut it off with all the coasters going :)

But i think cedar point puts the bill into their budget.

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- Dennis

Welcome to New York City

I really don't think that they would just turn off CP's power if they didn't pay- because a lot of people would be stuck. I'm sure they might have how much they spend somewhere because I was browsing around on my dad's laptop (He works for Firestone.) a while ago and found info on how much they had spent on things like power, gas, repairs, ect. But I'm sure a tire company is totally different then an Amusement park. :-)

But then again, being only 14 I'm really not into accounting.

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"Life is like a roller coaster;enjoy it."
Magnum rides: 20
Wicked Twists: 5
MF rides: 13

I would certainly expect that all of the incandescent lighting in the park has a significanly higher current draw than all of the coasters combined--including WT. Heating a piece of wire tends to be a very inefficient use of electricity. Though, I have been seeing more compact flourescent lighting around the park..;) A coaster really only needs power to run a couple PLCs (in fail check mode, sensors, panel views, etc), maybe a compressor, and possibly an industrial motor. But, at night, you see the whole thing lit up with 600W+ effect lighting, sodium lamps, etc.. As a shareholder, I once and a while dig through the financial documents, but I have never really seen the electric bill seperated from the operational budget, and since it is not capital cost it does not get its own line item.

Probably your specific question is in regards to WT, since it may appear to use a lot of electricity to do what it does, however, that is only a small piece of the story. You can only get billed for what you can account for. Power distribution is a bit tricky, but two effects become apparent with launched coasters. First, at the heart of it, a LIM or LSM is just a motor stretched out. Well, since motors are a bunch of wire windings, they have a high inductance, accordingly quite a skewed power factor. Power, like resistance, currect, and voltage consists of a "real" component, and an "imaginary" component. The imaginary component can be thought of as a phase shift, resulting from a complex impedance load such as an inductive or capacitive load. Well, remember launched coasters are mainly an inductive load (there is some real resistance in the windings, self inductance, etc, but at 480V it is pretty minimal comparatively). So, now we have a real problem, because generally the power meters are only good at reading the "real" part of the power consumption. Most of the time the power company just goes and makes a couple assumptions, they figure on average a residential customer has most of the power going toward lighting and such which is mainly resistive loads, but you still get some non-linear loads from transformers in wall worts, power supplies, etc. So they figure your power use is around 12% higher then what the meter reports. But, industrial customers such as a shop has a lot of motors and such which have a higher inductance, so they just figure that their industrial customers are going to have a higher power factor, over 32%, and just bill accordingly, but when you have a load on a sub-station which is ALL motors, how do you figure that one out? With some tests it is possible to come to a compromise with the power company, and work something out.

And, on to the second problem, which is really sticky. Understand that in power distribution, you have wires and transformers, the system really does not have the ability to store energy. Now, look at your loading conditions, you have a bunch of motor segments for the most part are idled and not drawing large amounts of current, then they are switched on in the order of milliseconds, then back off. Not much of an operating cycle, when for the most part the motors are off. For some round numbers, I believe each motor when activated draws about 500A at 500V, which is a LOT of _instantaneous_ power, but only for tens of milliseconds, so the RMS -- or average -- power is really small. Factor in the power meters have a bit of lag, mathematically acting as differentiators, so they read even less than RMS. I would be surprised if they are reading more power launching the coaster than the couple of sodium lamps to light up the track...;) OK, but that does not explain why the need for a new sub-station. Remember I said power distribution does not have a way to store energy? Well, lets say the ride is idle, and the power feeds are hanging around 480V, then the thing launches. Well there is always some lag in the system, so voltage drops to 300V, the load on the generators goes through the roof, and spools up to get back to around 480V. Now we have a problem, because the event ends as quickly and abruptly as it started, but the sub-station is still going "you want power, you're gett'en it!" Voltage on the line shoots up probably around 700V, of course popping anything that might be on the same transmission lines, so you really do not want to put anything else on that segment. The system then senses the load is no longer required, and returns back to normal.

I have to admit, this is a very oversimplified view of power distribution, since in real systems, even at 60Hz transmission lines start to look like high freq over a few miles (ie. get out your Smith Charts...:) ), and there are transformers and such, but it becomes apparent that we are talking about some very specialized power requirements. The fact that it appears that everything at the park is sponsered by FirstEnergy, I am sure CP is cut some sort of deal.... In other words, I think I am going to hold on to my shares of stock, because I do not think the electrical bill is going to drive the place out of business...;)

-j