I've got a little 'Power Usage Monitor' which was well worth the money. Most of the time it sits about 160W, if that!
I'm looking at a 1kW, 2.2m (2.2mØ or 3.8m² sweept area, is the largest you can fit without planning permission) blade diameter wind turbine, and 10 off 100W solar panels. Probably a bit overkill but I want to be completely free to run the house 'off grid'.
I have a 600W inverter to run the lighting and light usage, and a 2kW inverter to run the rest. At the moment I have 2 off 100AHr leisure batteries, but I'm hoping to go to 5 off.
My house ticks over below 500W.
Includes:-
Fridge @+- 40W,
Freezer @+- 40W,
All Lighting @+- 200W,
TV @+- 20W,
TV Boxes (sky and sh*t) @+- 40W
Computer (laptop) @+- 40W,
It's only when you turn on things like:-
Washing Machine ?W,
Tumble Dryer ?W,
Iron @+- 600W,
Kettle (higher than you'd think, 2.2kW these days)
Microwave (my 900w takes about 1.2kW)
Power Shower (9.5kW, Biggest user)
Going to be getting a lower wattage kettle, and hardly ever use the microwave. Don't even have a power shower at the moment, but going to update the bathroom soon.
Any excess power (once batteries are charged), rather than being dumped to a resistor, will be used to heat the hot water tank with a heating element (which is a resistor
).I will be documenting all this for you guys, with lots of pictures.
While I appreciate that this will cost a lot of money, my intention is to become non-reliant upon energy supply companies. I also have plans for ground source heating for warming the house and to use less gas.