4 ms·
100% disconnected; it was cheaper this way (grid was too far away). What is the typical kWh/day consumption of a household there in winter months?
by Andys 3y ago
100% disconnected; it was cheaper this way (grid was too far away).
What is the typical kWh/day consumption of a household there in winter months?
- louwrentius 3y agoThanks for sharing. To be frank, I've looked in my Energy supplier app (Vattenfall) and it states for December an average usage of 122 KWh (all households) and energy efficient households (solar) of 91 KWh.
- Andys 3y agoNo problem, I'm happy to share all the info. People need to hear how easy it is to do this with the latest technology. 122 kWh per day ? That can't be right.. does that include gas or something?
- louwrentius 3y agoSorry, per month. So around 4 KWh a day on average. Gas is not included.
- zo1 3y agoI'm not OP, but I would look at this tool I found a while back. Ridiculously useful and underrated. I think someone on HN linked it, as I've not found a tool so useful via googling despite many attempts. https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/ https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/ What you're looking for is the "Off Grid" tab, plug in your details. e.g. solar array size, size of battery, etc. Then click visualize results. After visualizing, there are a few tabs to help you make some decisions. For your case (Netherlands, it looks like a 5.4kWp solar array and 4kWh (I assumed 5) used per day, and with a single 5kWh battery, you should be able to go off-grid :) In fact, during summery months, you could even push to the grid. This tool even looks at cloud data based on various databases. I don't know of it's accuracy, but I'm inclined to trust it.
- Andys 3y agoOK. we're using about 20 to 30kWh per day (depending how much heating or cooling is needed). But with no gas.
- louwrentius 3y agoThose are huge numbers, but I understand the need for airconditioning and no gas means heating / hot water too.
- Andys 3y agoYeah - I suspect if you look at the kilojoules of gas your houses consume, these numbers would look small in comparison.
- sgt 3y agoThat's really low. Not sure how you achieve that. I think even in the Netherlands you could then go off grid with a large PV setup and diesel/propane generator for those few backup days.
- louwrentius 3y agoNo airconditioning, still on gas for heating/cooking. My “idle” of my house is 58 watt (no fridge running)”.
- sgt 3y agoI have two rooms with air conditioning but use them like 3 weeks a year (Jan/February is hot in Cape Town but you can do fine without AC). Also using gas for cooking, and heating is either via gas or wood burning stove. So your power consumption astounds me. I need to maybe just go and measure what my bits and bobs are doing. I'm afraid just my network/home server rack is >58W htough.
- louwrentius 3y agoI have no idea why your number is so high. If it's not heating or AC, if you do run a small server room, that can explain things. To be frank, my consumption was already quite lower, but I've made quite a lot of changes to reduce energy consumption even more. I ran a custom x96 router/fw that I replaced with a $60 Mikrotik router that also replaces a separate switch. I've replaced more power-hungry computers with energy-efficient ones. My existing server setup ~500Watt continously would likely take up 10KWh a day, but this is my magic trick: I don't need them 24/7. So they are off, and only turned on when required (remotely with WoL / remote power switch). The rest of what I need is on several Raspberry Pi 4B+ devices (I was lucky to buy a ton when we still could).
- sgt 3y agoOur washing machine, etc seems to run non stop so it's not hard to chow a few kWh's a day. But yeah I think it's in everyone's responsibility to try to optimize and analyze one's power usage. It's also fascinating. I like your "lazily loaded" server setup.
- sgt 3y agoWell done for going off-grid. But what do you do if you've got a whole week of rain? A lot of people here in South Africa are keen on off grid but it's unreasonably expensive since you'll have to cater for those rainy days, and that means you'll need to build a very large system. BTW kWh/day consumption here in the winter (which is probably typical) is around 25kWh per day.
- Andys 3y agoWe have a diesel generator but its only needed a few days a year; even with regular testing it only goes through about one jerry can a year, far less than we use for transport (would love an EV!)
- adrianmonk 3y ago> unreasonably expensive since you'll have to cater for those rainy days I wonder if it would make sense to get a generator[1] to supplement solar on rare occasion. If you want to build solar, but the cost of achieving reliability is the one thing stopping you, then maybe a generator could remove that obstacle. Yes, it emits carbon, and the fuel costs money. But if you only use it a few days each year, that might not be very significant. However, it makes the system design more complicated, and generators require maintenance. --- [1] I'd use propane since it can be stored 10+ years, whereas gasoline and diesel last 6-12 months. Also propane can be used for emergency heat.
- sgt 3y agoFair point. Having a test schedule every 3 months is probably a good idea to ensure that it'll start up.