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Ok so what am I missing here? In Germany a typical four person household is 2000kwh a year. Surely air conditioning can't make up for such a difference? Everybo

Ok so what am I missing here? In Germany a typical four person household is 2000kwh a year. Surely air conditioning can't make up for such a difference? Everybody already switched to electric cars?

BenjiWiebe 5y ago
I don't have the numbers, but air conditioning can suck up a LOT of energy. I'm pretty sure air conditioning would be (in our household) the single biggest energy user.
tzs 5y ago
That's about 170 kWh/month. I'm in the US and use around 450-500 kWh/month in the summer, which is my time of minimal use because it is warm enough to not need heating and usually not so warm as to need air conditioning. I'm curious why such a big difference. Here's what I'm using in a household of one. 1. Kitchen appliances: Fridge, microwave, toaster, oven, dishwasher. The first three are used daily. The oven and dishwasher once per week. I'll also occasionally use a bread machine and an electric kettle, maybe a couple times a month. 2. Washing machine and dryer. 4-6 times per month. 3. A 2017 27" iMac, a Raspberry Pi 3, cable modem, TP-Link A7 router, and two TP-Link SG108E switches. A USB hub and a case for a couple external SSDs. An external monitor. 4. A 55" LCD TV which is used a couple hours a day, and an A/V receiver which is always on but usually idle. A couple streaming boxes (Fire Stick 4K, Xfinity Flex). 5. iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Surface Pro 4 chargers charging those devices. 6. Indoor lighting. It is almost all LED. The only exceptions are the lights in the fridge and dryer, one bulb each in the attic and crawl space that I forgot about when switching to LED. 7. An outdoor security light in back that is on overnight. I'm not sure about its power consumption, but these are typically under 100 W, which would be 24 kWh/month during the summer. (I'm a bit puzzled by that light. I'm still using the same bulb that was there when I bought the house, giving the bulb on "on" time since I've owned it of around 56000 hours. That's quite a bit longer than expected for every kind of light bulb that I can think of that this might be. Only LED should approach that and definitely is not LED). 8. Well pump and water heater. The well pump runs maybe a couple times a day for maybe 5 minutes at a time, and would account for at most a few kWh/month. I know the water heater is a beast--but I think it only runs a little more frequently than once a day. 9. A couple box fans in windows at night to blow out hot air. They are 50 W each. Maybe 50 kWh/month. 10. Miscellaneous. Charger for rechargeable AA and AAA NiMH batteries. Electric toothbrush. A Google Home Mini as a kitchen timer. An Echo Dot to control lights. a Hue hub for the lights. Charger for the batteries for some cordless tools (drill, string trimmer, hedge trimmer) that are all used rarely.
zrail 5y ago
My house is very atypical for my area of Michigan. It's all electric with a geothermal ground source heat pump for heating and cooling and electric water heaters. In addition it has (or rather had) two of these geothermal units and two water heaters for two separate spaces. We also have a plug-in hybrid vehicle that we charge at home. Outdoor temperatures in the summer range from mid 70s F to low 100s F and humidity is almost always above 60%, hitting 90% for weeks at a time. Our electric usage in all but the coldest months of the year is around 2200kwh per month. I expect this to go down somewhat because we just upgraded one of the geothermal units and replaced the other with a gas furnace and inverter AC unit.
lttlrck 5y ago
It looks closer to 3.5Mwh: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity... But still that's far lower than the US at 11Mwh. Maybe A/C and home size accounts for most of it. We're a family of 3 and on track for around 8Mwh this year. We only use AC on the hottest days (Southern Californian climate so it's quite manageable throughout the year), water and dryer are gas - but I have a homelab which could be optimized.
- iforgotpassword 5y ago
  I got that figure from my last bill, they always add graphs and comparisons, like a bar chart displaying usage of a typical 1, 2, 3, 4 person household and then your usage. But maybe they show lower values here to get you to try and save more. I'm in a two person household and usually clocking in at 700-900kwh, and that's with a 24/7 home server drawing 30W, a rpi for kodi that I keep running, dish washer, washing machine, induction stove. No ac, no dryer, no microwave, hot water and central heating with natural gas. Also no more desktop pc since around 2014.
denimnerd42 5y ago
Have you seen the size of an American refrigerator compared to European? We use 2kwh a month here in August.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Ok so what am I missing here? In Germany a typical four person household is 2000kwh a year. Surely air conditioning can't make up for such a difference? Everybody already switched to electric cars?

BenjiWiebe 5y ago

I don't have the numbers, but air conditioning can suck up a LOT of energy. I'm pretty sure air conditioning would be (in our household) the single biggest energy user.

tzs 5y ago

That's about 170 kWh/month. I'm in the US and use around 450-500 kWh/month in the summer, which is my time of minimal use because it is warm enough to not need heating and usually not so warm as to need air conditioning. I'm curious why such a big difference. Here's what I'm using in a household of one. 1. Kitchen appliances: Fridge, microwave, toaster, oven, dishwasher. The first three are used daily. The oven and dishwasher once per week. I'll also occasionally use a bread machine and an electric kettle, maybe a couple times a month. 2. Washing machine and dryer. 4-6 times per month. 3. A 2017 27" iMac, a Raspberry Pi 3, cable modem, TP-Link A7 router, and two TP-Link SG108E switches. A USB hub and a case for a couple external SSDs. An external monitor. 4. A 55" LCD TV which is used a couple hours a day, and an A/V receiver which is always on but usually idle. A couple streaming boxes (Fire Stick 4K, Xfinity Flex). 5. iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Surface Pro 4 chargers charging those devices. 6. Indoor lighting. It is almost all LED. The only exceptions are the lights in the fridge and dryer, one bulb each in the attic and crawl space that I forgot about when switching to LED. 7. An outdoor security light in back that is on overnight. I'm not sure about its power consumption, but these are typically under 100 W, which would be 24 kWh/month during the summer. (I'm a bit puzzled by that light. I'm still using the same bulb that was there when I bought the house, giving the bulb on "on" time since I've owned it of around 56000 hours. That's quite a bit longer than expected for every kind of light bulb that I can think of that this might be. Only LED should approach that and definitely is not LED). 8. Well pump and water heater. The well pump runs maybe a couple times a day for maybe 5 minutes at a time, and would account for at most a few kWh/month. I know the water heater is a beast--but I think it only runs a little more frequently than once a day. 9. A couple box fans in windows at night to blow out hot air. They are 50 W each. Maybe 50 kWh/month. 10. Miscellaneous. Charger for rechargeable AA and AAA NiMH batteries. Electric toothbrush. A Google Home Mini as a kitchen timer. An Echo Dot to control lights. a Hue hub for the lights. Charger for the batteries for some cordless tools (drill, string trimmer, hedge trimmer) that are all used rarely.

zrail 5y ago

My house is very atypical for my area of Michigan. It's all electric with a geothermal ground source heat pump for heating and cooling and electric water heaters. In addition it has (or rather had) two of these geothermal units and two water heaters for two separate spaces. We also have a plug-in hybrid vehicle that we charge at home. Outdoor temperatures in the summer range from mid 70s F to low 100s F and humidity is almost always above 60%, hitting 90% for weeks at a time. Our electric usage in all but the coldest months of the year is around 2200kwh per month. I expect this to go down somewhat because we just upgraded one of the geothermal units and replaced the other with a gas furnace and inverter AC unit.

lttlrck 5y ago

It looks closer to 3.5Mwh: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity... But still that's far lower than the US at 11Mwh. Maybe A/C and home size accounts for most of it. We're a family of 3 and on track for around 8Mwh this year. We only use AC on the hottest days (Southern Californian climate so it's quite manageable throughout the year), water and dryer are gas - but I have a homelab which could be optimized.

iforgotpassword 5y ago
I got that figure from my last bill, they always add graphs and comparisons, like a bar chart displaying usage of a typical 1, 2, 3, 4 person household and then your usage. But maybe they show lower values here to get you to try and save more. I'm in a two person household and usually clocking in at 700-900kwh, and that's with a 24/7 home server drawing 30W, a rpi for kodi that I keep running, dish washer, washing machine, induction stove. No ac, no dryer, no microwave, hot water and central heating with natural gas. Also no more desktop pc since around 2014.

denimnerd42 5y ago

Have you seen the size of an American refrigerator compared to European? We use 2kwh a month here in August.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]