Peak Oil Home Electricity Requirements (Part 1)

Returning to the Homestead Example Problem, it’s time to focus on figuring our electricity requirements. For this, it’s best to start by estimating high and then paring things down as we refine our design.

The following table is a rough estimate for a family of four in a 2000 ft^2 house.

	Peak Wattage	Usage frequency	Daily energy (kWh)
Refrigerator	600	8 hours/day	4.8
Microwave	1500	10 min/day	0.25
Oven	5000	3 hours/week	2.1
Stove (range)	2000	5 hours/week	1.4
Food processor	300	1 hour/week	0.04
Slow cooker	200	10 hours/week	0.29
Home heating	300	8 hours/day	4
Water heating	4500	6 hours/day	27
Lights (halogen, LED)	130	3 hours/day	0.4
Food processor	300	1 hour/week	0.04
Computer	200	4 hours/day	0.8
TV	125	4 hours/day	0.6
Air conditioning (if required)	600	8 hours/day	4.8
Deep Freezer	600	12 hours/day	7.2
Ceiling fans (3)	200	8 hours/day	1.6
Clothes washer	1200	1 hours/day	1.2
Dish washer	300	1 hour/day	0.3
Clothes dryer	5000	1 hour/day	5
Cell phone	5	2 hours/day	0.01
Computer	200	4 hours/day	0.6
Vacuum cleaner	1200	1 hour/week	0.17
Power tools	1000	2 hours/day	2
Toaster	1000	10 min/day	0.17
Stand mixer	300	1 hour/week	0.04
Misc. (clocks, radio, etc.)	200	4 hours/day	0.6
	26,720W (This is HUGE!)		64.4 kWh

Please note that I am not advocating the use of any of these items – I just want to give a complete list of the most common appliances we use today. If you choose to use a dryer instead of a clothesline, or a dishwasher instead of washing by hand, that’s fine. This is not a forum for us to judge each other, it is a forum for developing design strategies.

These numbers are first iteration estimates, which err on the high side. This serves several purposes: first, it prevents us from overly restricting the design too early in the process (remember, we are still in the first iteration of the design cycle); second, as appliances age they become less efficient.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 where we refine the estimate to more reasonable numbers.