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Interesting to see the different power usage and electricity rates for a different part of the globe. Here in the Houston, TX area we used 848 kWh in a 30 day w
by ljoshua 11y ago
Interesting to see the different power usage and electricity rates for a different part of the globe. Here in the Houston, TX area we used 848 kWh in a 30 day winter period for a mid-sized home, which is as much as the article states the household used in a 95 day period. During the summer, when my old AC unit is running like crazy, we'll use ~1800 kWh, and our rate is an average of $0.102 USD, which is around 60% of the top rate from the article.
A Powerwall unit still wouldn't make sense for us, but this is rev 1, and so in a couple of generations we could be looking at something that actually could be impactful.
- merb 11y ago848 kWh sounds a lot. For a 4 person house in germany you have a yearly usage ~1800kWh. You have the same amount in a 1/3 year. That's a shitload. Currently I'm single and use 848 kWh for a whole year.
- noselasd 11y agoThat sounds so little. Just having two 50W lightbulbs shining 24x7 would be slightly more than that in a year.
- merb 11y agoCurrently I'm below average something like 200kWh below. However currently I'm only at home on Sundays, all other days I'm only be here to sleep and eat, however I barely cook, so a toaster and breed doesn't use so much energy and I have LED's everywhere so I use max. 7W per room (2 rooms total + 1 bath) however I turn off the light's after leaving a room. I have no dishwasher and my watching machine is really really good when it comes to energy. I barely watch TV and I use my MacBook for surfing which gets loaded at my company (I use it there, too). So I only need a light with 7W for like 4 Hours, have a router running 24/7 which consumes nearly nothing. I'm a single. So no problem there. (Btw. my invoice for food is definitely higher than most ;)) oh and btw. in germany energy isn't as cheap as in the usa. also if you use solar energy in germany you could only use 30% since the rest goes to the public (and you get nearly nothing for that).
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- bane 11y agoHouston, TX is both very hot and very humid. It can exceed 30C for 4-5 months out of the year and it will be dreadfully humid for much of that time. A/C is virtually required to do anything productive.
- darkr 11y agoI guess if he's in Houston, TX then a chunk of that goes on air con
- masklinn 11y agoThe 848kWh is for winter, summer is 1800. I'm guessing it's a ton of heating because houses are very badly insulated, both for historical reasons and because otherwise everything rots in hot and humid summers (and nothing ever dries completely). Japan has the same issue (insulation is quite terrible throughout, central heating is also rare), I'm guessing Houston is even worse because people keep to western habits (light-ish indoor garments and heating the whole house).
- danmaz74 11y agoIs electric heating so common in the US?
- Jtsummers 11y agoIn the northern states you'll often find furnaces, at least in older homes. In the southern states, it's pretty much all electric heating if it's recent (< 30 year old) construction.
- chaud 11y agoMaybe in apartments, but in recently built single family homes throughout the south, a gas furnace is very common. I haven't known anyone that has anything else in the several southern states I have lived in, other than those people who tried to get away with heat pumps. Electric heating is significantly more expensive than gas.
- cptskippy 11y agoI've lived in numerous houses and apartments in Georgia built in the 50s, 60s, 80s, and 00s. Every single one used a gas furnace. Every heat pump system I've seen had a propane or natural gas backup furnace. The only times I've ever seen electric were in water heaters and stoves.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago> and so in a couple of generations we could be looking at something that actually could be impactful. But battery technology in itself isn't new; you could make a similar package out of car batteries if need be. I think that if it was economically viable, it would've been done ages ago. Then again I'm probably wrong.
- mikeash 11y agoBattery technology has changed a lot over the past couple of decades. A good chunk of the cost here is in the controller electronics (you need a hefty inverter to allow the battery to power your AC household circuits) and that has, of course, changed enormously. All of this changes the costs and the space requirements, and that in turn changes whether or not it's economically viable.