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The cost of electricity in most of Europe is prohibitive, all things and fees considered I'm sitting at €0.50/kWh. Furthermore, most homes are allotted 3kW, upg
by eur0pa 3y ago
The cost of electricity in most of Europe is prohibitive, all things and fees considered I'm sitting at €0.50/kWh. Furthermore, most homes are allotted 3kW, upgradeable to 6kW for a fixed one-time fee, and perpetual fees in the monthly bill.
The recent (2021) AC unit with a heat pump in this apartment draws 0.75 to 1.1kW. That means for every hour I'm using it I'm paying about €0.50, and I can't turn on neither the dishwasher, nor the washing machine, nor the oven while it's running. Maybe I can use the hairdryer but even that might trip the breaker if the wrong combination of lights, TV and fridge happens.
Electricity is scarce and expensive in Europe, gas isn't. I appreciate how efficient and more sustainable heat pumps are but money doesn't grow on trees.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago> Furthermore, most homes are allotted 3kW, upgradeable to 6kW for a fixed one-time fee, and perpetual fees in the monthly bill. Are you sure of those numbers? 3kW is the max capacity of a single socket (at least in the UK). My electric shower is 10kW and electric hobs/cookers also need higher ratings than standard sockets. Here in the UK I believe that the standard domestic capacity is 100A per home (so about 24kW).
- Macha 3y agoYeah, 3kW is crazy low. I checked my local appliance store's website and they sell kettles capable of pulling 3kW on their own.
- bowietrousers 3y agoStandard single phase grid connection is either 60A, 80A or 100A in the UK. The numbers the OP is quoting here certainly aren't representative.
- eur0pa 3y agoThere are other countries beside the US and UK. Italian homes get 3kW in total, breaker trips at 3.3. You may request up to 6kW for additional fees.
- eur0pa 3y agoIt is in Italy, where I'm located.
- theshrike79 3y agoWell that's like your problem :) But seriously, how can you cope with 3kW power to apartments? No electric ovens, no water kettles, no AC? Just running a few modern gaming computers on full load will trip the breaker O_O
- eur0pa 3y agoBy being judicious about what we plug in and when. And by using gas.
- distances 3y agoSame in Finland. Single family homes typically have 3x25A or 3x35A, which means 17kW or 24kW.
- prepend 3y agoI’m really surprised by that price. I live in a top top US state and pay <$0.10/kWh for unlimited electricity and can get down to 7 cents if I sign up for alternate times and special programs. I used over 1,000kWh last month. I’m trying to figure out if my future is 5x energy prices or there’s just a huge structural difference that makes one country’s energy infrastructure vastly superior.
- syntaxing 3y agoTop top as in north or top top as in expensive? Are you factoring in delivery charges? Cause the average American electric price is 0.163 kWh which is pretty close to what I pay. [1] https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices_selectedareas_table.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...
- prepend 3y agoMy price is $0.07/kWh delivered. As in shows on my bill each month. There is a 20% overhead charge, but that’s the price per kWh.
- holgerschurig 3y agoI read a statistics before the COVID pandemic (and Russia's invasion) and that boiled down to two things: * electricity is half as expensive in the USA * but median US households use double the electric power than their european counterparts Reasons are much better housing standards here (much better insulation), and WAY less AC devices. Another reason is of course the higher price, this makes people buy household devices that use less power. Like the european fridge, which hasn't an ice-cube maker by default, so it's insulation isn't artificially broken. Also, european pay more for infrastructure in their power prices, like for the transit lines. If you ever look up hard statistics about power outages (like the SAIDI value, amount of minutes per year per customer without power) you see that the US power grid has been starved to death: more than 240 minutes per year without power. Compare this with about 11 minutes in Germany ... And finally, many european subsidized "green energy" (like Solar) when it was still more expensive than fossil-made electricity. And the subsidy was then paid by all power consumers, not from general taxes. As a result, CO2 emission per electricity customer / household in most of europe is lower than the same value in the USA.
- Dolototo 3y agoYou are highly simplifying things. France has cheap energy and a lot of electric heating. Guess for whom a heat pump might be the next best thing? Yeah French people.
- audunw 3y agoYou’re making generalisations about Europe that just don’t make sense. There are plenty of countries/regions in Europe where electricity is more readily available. You can’t even generalise about a single country. North Germany has a lot more renewable electricity than South Germany. Is the AC power consumption you’re citing for summer or winter? Seems crazy high for winter in Italy (if that’s where you’re from ref your other comment). Our home in Norway uses about that much right now in mid winter. I guess the apartment might not be well insulated? That’s another problem countries in Europe need to work on. It’s insane to waste energy due to insufficient insulation. Energy, especially fossil energy, is not going to get more plentiful any time soon. If you don’t invest in energy saving measures soon you’ll be screwed eventually.