Michael Brown wrote:
OK, so a quick clarification on the topic of kilowatts vs kilowatt-hrs (and just a bit on solar stuff, too)...
Thanks for the tutorial, but I think that most of the people involved in this discussion are clear on the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours. What I'm not getting is Shawn's reference to a "10% capacity factor." His figure of 2600 kWh per capita per annum works out to 7.12 kWh per person per day, which would be an average continuous demand of 0.3 kW (7.12 kilowatt-hours divided by 24 hours). My figure from the DOE was an average American household use of 936 kWh/month, which is 31.2 kWh/day (936 divided by 30). Put the two together and you get an average household size of 4.4 people, which shows that the two sets of figures are in reasonable alignment. Using Shawn's figures, if you assume as Shawn does that the average household has 2-3 people, then that household is using 14.24 to 21.36 kWh/day, or an average continuous load of 0.59 to 0.89 kW. This is even less than I was getting from the DOE number. So... I still don't see where the 4-6 kW average household use is coming from. That would be 96-144 kWh a day, which is high even for Americans. At our place we average about 19 a day, and that's in a pretty normal 1950s ranch house with a lot of electric appliances. Jon _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
