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OK, So what's the limit of a system you could run from your own house (or apartment)? A single standard outlet yields 1500-1800 watts but there are higher vol
by joe_the_user 3y ago
OK,
So what's the limit of a system you could run from your own house (or apartment)?
A single standard outlet yields 1500-1800 watts but there are higher voltage/amperage outlets in many houses.
- ygra 3y ago3.5 kW here at least (16 A × 230 V). If you replace the stove with a computer, you get three phases, which supplies a bit more.
- LeonM 3y agoI think you are confusing a breaker group with your total residential connection. Assuming you are in Europe, and you have 2.5mm² cabling (which is the standard for residential applications) then you are indeed limited to 16A per group. However, there is nothing preventing you from using multiple groups for one appliance. This is actually typical for high-power appliances, such as induction cooking. Ultimately it is your main fuse that limits your total power consumption, which for most European countries this is typically rated at 25A (5750W), but on request you can usually have this raised to 35A, 50A or even 80A, if supply is sufficient.
- CapitalistCartr 3y agoIf you're in USA or Canada, your house is probably over-wired and can handle some extra load. Plugging into the electric dryer outlet is good for 5760 continuous watts. The stove outlet is 9600 continuous watts. An electrician could easily add an additional one.
- xattt 3y agoTankless electric hot water heaters can be rated for 24-36 ㎾ (max current draw 150 A)! These are wired with 3-4 8-gauge wires in parallel and connected to 40A breakers. The only limit to household wiring would be the capacity of the distribution coming into your home.
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- repiret 3y agoI plumber I used to have do work for me told me a story about the first time he installed one: when he first turned it on, it blew a fuse at the substation a couple miles away. A few years later I got to know the person whose house it was installed in. And when the homeowner was talking about it he complained that the plumber didn’t install a big enough one and he had to have it redone.
- acquacow 3y agoThat certainly shouldn't be able to happen. The top of panel breaker should pop with a large enough load, and the mains on the street can handle quite a number of homes with supply. There's no way a single in-home unit should/could pop anything at a substation. The component at the substation likely just failed at that time.
- xattt 3y agoI am wondering if there were no household loads on that circuit that had that level of in-rush current, the component was on its way out, and the new load pushed it over the edge.
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- CapitalistCartr 3y agoYes, they are, but most single family homes here have either a 150 or 200 amp main. Most families rarely exceed 120 amps, so adding 20-35 amps of intermittent load isn't a problem. On the other hand, tankless electrics often cause a service upgrade unless planned for new construction. Great for us electricians, less great for the homeowner.
- AdamTReineke 3y agoWe had one (Stiebel Eltron 36KW) installed earlier this year which required a service upgrade to 320A service. AMA, though responses may be delayed a day or two. Our all-electric home's max instantaneous draw over the last a couple months peaked around 44 kW.
- bragr 3y agoA typical US residential breaker panel is rated for between 100 and 200 amps so probably around there across all circuits without major electrical work.
- metafunctor 3y agoFor a typical house in my parts (Finland), it would be 230V and 3 x 25A fuses, so maximum power draw is 17kW. Most houses would be able to upgrade to 35A without extensive reworking of cables, getting to a 24kW maximum. Also 50A and 63A are available for consumers in most locations, but would require re-evaluating the cabling coming to the house.
- DarkUranium 3y agoAt least in Slovenia, many new-ish houses also have a 3-phase outlet or two. I don't know what the maximum wattage of those is, but I do know it's a lot --- and on a single outlet.
- metafunctor 3y agoMany houses here have those as well. The outlets in question are rated for 3 x 230V x 16A, about 11kW. I'm guessing it would be the same in Slovenia.
- c2h5oh 3y agoThe "largest" single outlet I have is 3F32A which caps out at 22kW. Entire house is wired for 3 phase power capped at 125A per phase - just over 86kW total
- mtreis86 3y agoWe just upgraded our lines from the street from 100A to 200A (at 240V) so that pair of wires can support around 48KW. I think my stove is 20A at 240V so the fattest wire in the house protected by a breaker can safely handle around 4.8KW. On the 120 side the biggest wire I've got is 20A, so 2.4kw. Many house receptacles are only 15A max, hence your 1.8kw.
- jtriangle 3y agoAlso understand that you can only use 80% of a circuit's capacity in a continuous fashion, so the usable power for compute is a fair bit lower than it seems.
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- quickthrowman 3y agoA typical (new) residential service in the US is 200A @ 240v single-phase, or 48kW. Assuming the circuit is protected by a breaker, you can use up to 38.4kW of that 48kW. If you used fuses instead of breakers, you could use the full 48kW.
- Kirby64 3y agoThe 80% derating only applies to 'continuous loads' which are defined by NEC to be anything >3 hours continuously at maximum current. Any circuit breaker will not trip at the rated current, though. They're designed not to. So, you can run all 48kW indefinitely without tripping a circuit breaker, assuming everything else is sized appropriately (i.e., wire, interconnects, etc).
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- calamari4065 3y agoThe limit is space, really. Well, that and money. If you're willing to pay, you can probably convince your utility to hook you up to three phase power, which is typically reserved for industrial use. If you want to stay with your normal residential circuit, in the US they're commonly 100 or 150A. 200A isn't uncommon, but you might have to pay for an upgrade. That leaves you with 200A*240V=480kW minus whatever you need for normal house things. So probably more compute than you have physical space for.
- adastra22 3y agoAlso in the US at least residential power is way more than commercial power, so at some point (much earlier than you’d think) you stop saving money on rack space rent.
- quickthrowman 3y ago> That leaves you with 200A*240V=480kW You’re off by an order of magnitude: 200 * 240 = 48000 > If you're willing to pay, you can probably convince your utility to hook you up to three phase power, which is typically reserved for industrial use. Three-phase power isn’t only for industrial use, (in the United States) small commercial buildings will have a 208v three-phase service drop and larger commercial buildings will have a 480v service drop, or 13.8kV medium voltage drop if it’s big enough. Large enough industrial customers will have dedicated substations.
- mciancia 3y ago200A*240V is 48kW ;) Also, in Europe 3 phase power afair is fairly common.
- slavik81 3y agoI'm in Canada and have a 30A 240V breaker for the Debian ROCm Team's CI [1]. It's only rated for 80% continuously, so that's roughly 5.7 kW. In theory, the four systems currently hooked up to it could draw almost that much, but their workload only uses ~1 kW in practice. [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-ai/2023/12/msg00031.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-ai/2023/12/msg00031.html
- odiroot 3y agoI had a 3.6KW induction cooker plugged into a standard socket, so you can get as high as that.