5 ms·

Please tell us, I'm struggling to identify what this 2/3 of optional power usage is? A super computer in your spare room? Tesla coil security??

taneq 7y ago
Probably air conditioning, mostly. Maybe using an electric kettle? Leaving the TV on while you do housework? There's a lot of low hanging fruit that most people could save with relatively little sacrifice.
- chewz 7y ago
  In Central Europe 80% of energy consumption for average household is heating in winter (September to May). Unplugging phone charger won't help. And the solar ain't available October to April.
  - ljf 7y ago
    Solar isn't available? All my friends here in the UK with panels would beg to differ. Sure less than the summer, but a rooftop aray and still put out a decent amount of power much of winter. Maybe not in the high North, but esp since you qualified that with 'central Europe' I'd wager there is plenty of solar generation going on then across Europe.
    - chewz 7y ago
      Look at fig 6. > Due to low availability of solar energy in December, the required area is as much as 341.0 m2. No one will put 340 sq meters of solars panels on small house's roof or on it's lawns. And no one is Suwalki would like to freeze in December. There are other technologies like heat pumps etc. But solar is not of use in winter. Not for heating. https://www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3sconf/pdf/2018/24/e3sconf_solina2018_00049.pdf https://www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3sconf/pdf/2018/24...
      - ljf 7y ago
        That is for heating a single family home. Not many homes in Europe or heated with electricity, especially not with solar electricity. Especially not in somewhere as cold as Poland.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Kettle has to be the cheapest way of boiling water, so economising it away seems short sighted. Or do you mean by switching to only cold drinks?
- benj111 7y ago
  Turning the TV off whilst doing the house work is basically a rounding error. You'd have to drink a lot of tea (or rather stop drinking) before kettle usage starts accounting for anywhere near 2/3rds of your electrical usage. Air conditioning/electrical heating is possible. But if its 2/3rds of your energy usage, it doesn't sound that optional. The biggest users of electricity are ones you can't easily cut out. Electric car, hot water, heating/cooling, cooking, washing machine, dryer, fridge. They're the major energy users in the home, and you can't easily reduce them by the 2/3rds required. Unless you took your shack to passivehaus standards, and that's only for heating cooling.
  - chess_buster 7y ago
    So buy more efficient devices then.
    - benj111 7y ago
      We are talking about reducing 2/3rd of your electricity consumption. The only 2 classes of devices that could save that much is incandescent -> led light and resistive heating -> heat pump. And those efficiencies aren't enough to offset all the other devices where efficiency improvements are in the single digit percent. So you're still having to combine that with something else, which seems to be moving away from the relatively painless the great(?) grandparent described it as.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Air conditioning and heating can easily be 2/3rds or more of your usage and is trivial to reduce. Instead of running aircon in the summer you can probably use a fan most days and save 5-10kWh per day. In winter, dress warmly and rug up in a blanket instead of keeping your room at 22°C. This on its own would make up the bulk of the savings. Electric hot water is another huge power drain, switch to solar hot water and 3/4 of the year your hot water could be free (depending on climate, of course). Otherwise keep showers short, set the water heater thermostat to 50°C instead of 70°C and you could save a lot. Depends on your TV, my old one pulled 400W or so. Not huge compared with heating/cooling but still significant if you leave it on all the time. Tumble dryers use tons of power. Hang your laundry up instead and you could save yourself 20-30kWh/week. If you're driving an electric car you're loaded enough that the cost of charging it will not be an issue anyway (especially given that every dollar you spend in electricity is saving you several dollars' worth of petrol). So basically all of these things can be reduced a lot for very little extra effort or inconvenience. I don't think 2/3rds would be out of the question without making major sacrifices.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Last time I tested it, boiling a kettle takes less than 2 minutes, it draws 2 kW, so 8 cups per day is 22 watts average. An electric shower is about 20 kW, so at 30 minutes per day that’s an average of 417 W. I’m not sure about electric ovens, but I think it’s a similar range. Heating/cooling and transport are the biggest users. The low-hanging fruit is mostly a mixture of “eaten” and “not tasty” if you’ll excuse extending the metaphor.
tim333 7y ago
Having spent a while camping and using solar there are a lot of things that can go. Heating costs can go to zero by using insulation. Macbook Air type computers and LED lamps are low enough power to run on solar etc. We still tended to use gas for cooking.

taneq 7y ago

Probably air conditioning, mostly. Maybe using an electric kettle? Leaving the TV on while you do housework? There's a lot of low hanging fruit that most people could save with relatively little sacrifice.

chewz 7y ago
In Central Europe 80% of energy consumption for average household is heating in winter (September to May). Unplugging phone charger won't help. And the solar ain't available October to April.
- ljf 7y ago
  Solar isn't available? All my friends here in the UK with panels would beg to differ. Sure less than the summer, but a rooftop aray and still put out a decent amount of power much of winter. Maybe not in the high North, but esp since you qualified that with 'central Europe' I'd wager there is plenty of solar generation going on then across Europe.
  - chewz 7y ago
    Look at fig 6. > Due to low availability of solar energy in December, the required area is as much as 341.0 m2. No one will put 340 sq meters of solars panels on small house's roof or on it's lawns. And no one is Suwalki would like to freeze in December. There are other technologies like heat pumps etc. But solar is not of use in winter. Not for heating. https://www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3sconf/pdf/2018/24/e3sconf_solina2018_00049.pdf https://www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3sconf/pdf/2018/24...
    - ljf 7y ago
      That is for heating a single family home. Not many homes in Europe or heated with electricity, especially not with solar electricity. Especially not in somewhere as cold as Poland.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Kettle has to be the cheapest way of boiling water, so economising it away seems short sighted. Or do you mean by switching to only cold drinks?
benj111 7y ago
Turning the TV off whilst doing the house work is basically a rounding error. You'd have to drink a lot of tea (or rather stop drinking) before kettle usage starts accounting for anywhere near 2/3rds of your electrical usage. Air conditioning/electrical heating is possible. But if its 2/3rds of your energy usage, it doesn't sound that optional. The biggest users of electricity are ones you can't easily cut out. Electric car, hot water, heating/cooling, cooking, washing machine, dryer, fridge. They're the major energy users in the home, and you can't easily reduce them by the 2/3rds required. Unless you took your shack to passivehaus standards, and that's only for heating cooling.
- chess_buster 7y ago
  So buy more efficient devices then.
  - benj111 7y ago
    We are talking about reducing 2/3rd of your electricity consumption. The only 2 classes of devices that could save that much is incandescent -> led light and resistive heating -> heat pump. And those efficiencies aren't enough to offset all the other devices where efficiency improvements are in the single digit percent. So you're still having to combine that with something else, which seems to be moving away from the relatively painless the great(?) grandparent described it as.
- taneq 7y ago
  Air conditioning and heating can easily be 2/3rds or more of your usage and is trivial to reduce. Instead of running aircon in the summer you can probably use a fan most days and save 5-10kWh per day. In winter, dress warmly and rug up in a blanket instead of keeping your room at 22°C. This on its own would make up the bulk of the savings. Electric hot water is another huge power drain, switch to solar hot water and 3/4 of the year your hot water could be free (depending on climate, of course). Otherwise keep showers short, set the water heater thermostat to 50°C instead of 70°C and you could save a lot. Depends on your TV, my old one pulled 400W or so. Not huge compared with heating/cooling but still significant if you leave it on all the time. Tumble dryers use tons of power. Hang your laundry up instead and you could save yourself 20-30kWh/week. If you're driving an electric car you're loaded enough that the cost of charging it will not be an issue anyway (especially given that every dollar you spend in electricity is saving you several dollars' worth of petrol). So basically all of these things can be reduced a lot for very little extra effort or inconvenience. I don't think 2/3rds would be out of the question without making major sacrifices.
ben_w 7y ago
Last time I tested it, boiling a kettle takes less than 2 minutes, it draws 2 kW, so 8 cups per day is 22 watts average. An electric shower is about 20 kW, so at 30 minutes per day that’s an average of 417 W. I’m not sure about electric ovens, but I think it’s a similar range. Heating/cooling and transport are the biggest users. The low-hanging fruit is mostly a mixture of “eaten” and “not tasty” if you’ll excuse extending the metaphor.

tim333 7y ago

Having spent a while camping and using solar there are a lot of things that can go. Heating costs can go to zero by using insulation. Macbook Air type computers and LED lamps are low enough power to run on solar etc. We still tended to use gas for cooking.