Comments on: UK electricity consumption http://craigloftus.net/blog/2009/07/19/uk-electricity-consumption/ Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:18:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Craig http://craigloftus.net/blog/2009/07/19/uk-electricity-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-2689 Craig Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:30:20 +0000 http://craigloftus.net/blog/?p=56#comment-2689 Damon. You're quite right about the need to distinguish between mean and modal consumption figures. I would be interested to know the source of your consumption data? Of course, if you're using modal consumption data, that should be compared with the occupancy data for the households in your modal set, rather than the UK average, which might not be the same. Unfortunately I lost all my households consumption data in a rather unfortunate hard-drive incident :(. From what I was observing though, I am not far under the national average, mainly due to an old PC and being in rented accommodation (which means a nasty old electric cooker). Damon. You’re quite right about the need to distinguish between mean and modal consumption figures. I would be interested to know the source of your consumption data?

Of course, if you’re using modal consumption data, that should be compared with the occupancy data for the households in your modal set, rather than the UK average, which might not be the same.

Unfortunately I lost all my households consumption data in a rather unfortunate hard-drive incident :( . From what I was observing though, I am not far under the national average, mainly due to an old PC and being in rented accommodation (which means a nasty old electric cooker).

]]> By: Damon Hart-Davis http://craigloftus.net/blog/2009/07/19/uk-electricity-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-2645 Damon Hart-Davis Fri, 01 Jan 2010 10:43:51 +0000 http://craigloftus.net/blog/?p=56#comment-2645 BTW, if your new meter gadget is one that clips on to the main supply live wire, I'd be interested to know if you see something that others have reported, that compact fluorescents and other electronic gizmos are shown as consuming far more energy than the rating on the device, and/or the consumption shown if you use a plug-in power meter. If so, it's because the clip-on cannot deal properly with the 'power factor' of these electronic devices, but I'd love to be wrong! Rgds Damon BTW, if your new meter gadget is one that clips on to the main supply live wire, I’d be interested to know if you see something that others have reported, that compact fluorescents and other electronic gizmos are shown as consuming far more energy than the rating on the device, and/or the consumption shown if you use a plug-in power meter.

If so, it’s because the clip-on cannot deal properly with the ‘power factor’ of these electronic devices, but I’d love to be wrong!

Rgds

Damon

]]> By: Damon Hart-Davis http://craigloftus.net/blog/2009/07/19/uk-electricity-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-2644 Damon Hart-Davis Fri, 01 Jan 2010 10:40:26 +0000 http://craigloftus.net/blog/?p=56#comment-2644 Hi, So far as I know UK domestic *mean* household electricity consumption is ~4.7MWh/y and modal is nearer ~3.3MWh/y (the different presumably being in part the ~1.5M households out of 26.5M that are not on the gas grid, some of which will be heating with electricity: ~33% of domestic electricity is supplied on an Economy 7 tariff). That gives me figures on either side of yours, but not too far out. But it is possible to do much better: we *don't* heat with electricity, and our consumption for a family of 4 (including me working from home part-time) is under 2MWh/y. http://www.earth.org.uk/saving-electricity.html#meter Rgds Damon Hi,

So far as I know UK domestic *mean* household electricity consumption is ~4.7MWh/y and modal is nearer ~3.3MWh/y (the different presumably being in part the ~1.5M households out of 26.5M that are not on the gas grid, some of which will be heating with electricity: ~33% of domestic electricity is supplied on an Economy 7 tariff).

That gives me figures on either side of yours, but not too far out.

But it is possible to do much better: we *don’t* heat with electricity, and our consumption for a family of 4 (including me working from home part-time) is under 2MWh/y.

http://www.earth.org.uk/saving-electricity.html#meter

Rgds

Damon

]]> By: Craig http://craigloftus.net/blog/2009/07/19/uk-electricity-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-1545 Craig Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:18:29 +0000 http://craigloftus.net/blog/?p=56#comment-1545 Wikipedia has a page listing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption" rel="nofollow">electricity consumption per country</a>, using that data the world per capita annual average comes out at 2603 kWh (2005). The UK, however, comes out at 5844 kWh, which is obviously rather different to my figure. The data used on Wikipedia represent total electricity usage for a country, not domestic usage. From UK government data the equivalent figure is 5368 kWh (2005), just 8% out. So if we assume the data for other countries are just as good we can continue the current trend of stupid assumptions and bad 'science' by assuming that on average other countries have the same domestic/industry split i.e. domestic accounts for 37 % of the total usage. This results in a global domestic usage value of 828 kWh. So the UK average pie eating grumbler is using 160 % more leccy than the grey global average person. I leave calculating the domestic/industry split for each country on the planet as an exercise for the reader. When said reader has worked out the answer he can give us a more accurate answer. Oh... and the units for 2.36 should be pretty obvious from the sentence - I would guess you're just being a pedant, but that seems very unlikely. Wikipedia has a page listing the electricity consumption per country, using that data the world per capita annual average comes out at 2603 kWh (2005). The UK, however, comes out at 5844 kWh, which is obviously rather different to my figure. The data used on Wikipedia represent total electricity usage for a country, not domestic usage. From UK government data the equivalent figure is 5368 kWh (2005), just 8% out. So if we assume the data for other countries are just as good we can continue the current trend of stupid assumptions and bad ‘science’ by assuming that on average other countries have the same domestic/industry split i.e. domestic accounts for 37 % of the total usage. This results in a global domestic usage value of 828 kWh.

So the UK average pie eating grumbler is using 160 % more leccy than the grey global average person. I leave calculating the domestic/industry split for each country on the planet as an exercise for the reader. When said reader has worked out the answer he can give us a more accurate answer.

Oh… and the units for 2.36 should be pretty obvious from the sentence – I would guess you’re just being a pedant, but that seems very unlikely.

]]> By: Samir http://craigloftus.net/blog/2009/07/19/uk-electricity-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-1542 Samir Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:27:17 +0000 http://craigloftus.net/blog/?p=56#comment-1542 What are the units of the 2.36? And while you're at it, can we please have a global average as a comparator? What are the units of the 2.36? And while you’re at it, can we please have a global average as a comparator?

]]>