Talk:Domestic energy consumption

Page linking
This lacks references and a worldwide view. I suggest linking instead to pages such as Energy efficiency in British housing. Rich257 10:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Purpose of this article
The reason why I created this article is to help people wanting to install their own domestic system for energy generation (eg by small windturbine or alternatively PV solar panels) a general guideline to how much energy they need to create. Also, the article is to give more in depth information per country (generation requirements are allot less in the (sub)tropics than in temperate climates. As such, this article needs urgent attention as it is of vital importance for the environmental movement.

KVDP (talk) 15:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Better table wikification needed
As is clear, the table has not been perfectly coded. Is it possible that someone corrects it so it looks 'top-notch' ? Thanks.

KVDP (talk) 16:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I have changed the formatting. Red and green should not be used as they can't be distinguished by colour blind people and the criteria was rather subjective.  Although the table looks better I have to say that the saying that you "can't polish a turd" applies here.  The data are unreferenced and I don't think that an average of developing countries has any meaning.  Which countries are included?  How is it averaged?  I reckon that the range varies so much that these data are misleading. Rich257 (talk) 22:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

No content-sections
I agree that they may be removed from the article. I'm placing them here dough so that I can quickly insert them when I get more info.

Amount and size of powerplants required
For practical (off-the-grid microgeneration) use, rather than the domestic energy requirements, the domestic electricity requirements need to be taken. These are around 4000-5000kwH. Together with data available from the Building for a Future-report, we can calculate the amount/size of powerplants required.

With each powerplant, rough estimates of the generated power are available. This information is usually mentioned in kilowatt (kW). Examples are 1-5 kW for a small diy windmill, 2kW for a small diy PV system, 5 kW for a converted watermill, ...

Amount of solar panels required
According to documents by Practical Action, the amount of power generated by solar panels is between 250 and 2500 kilowatt hours per m². As such, 16.8m² to 1.68m² on solar panels is required to fulfill in the electricity needs of a general home.

Amount of wind turbines required
A small-scale, rooftop wind turbine is said to be able to generate power from 10% to up to 25% of the electricity requirements of a regular house.

Following diagram illustrates the size of wind turbines required and the energy they generate :

Size of water wheel/water turbine required
As we can determine from documents made up by government divisions (ODE), the yearly power generated by a waterwheel is between 5 and 40 kW, depending on the size of waterwheel, the type used (some are way less efficient) and the stream/river it is used on.

1kW wind turbine equals 1000watt energy production yearly?
Does a 1kW wind turbine means that it generates 1000watt energy production yearly? If so, it would be easy to make the calculations required.


 * No, a 1kW generator running for one hour produces 1kW hour or energy. Thus the output per year of a generator depends on how long it is producing power and how much power it is producing at that instant.  In mathematical terms if you plot power output over time then the energy produced is the area under the line, the integral.  Note that power is measured in Watts while energy is measured in kWH. Rich257 (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Special design power plants
Special designs of the power plants mentioned also need to be included. They are said to produce much more energy. For example Swift turbine can produce 2000kwH annually The Motorwave turbines may allow even greater amounts of power.

KVDP (talk) 13:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be useful to include the types mentioned here:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah810e/AH810E10.htm (originallu for windpumps) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.215.15 (talk) 12:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Annual wind energy generation
I've taken the annual power column out of the table because the annual amount seems incorrect to me. The figures were quoted as 5MW (for example), which is a measure of capacity not an annual amout. The annual total should be in units of kW hours or MW hours. Rich257 (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)