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@immibis @smokku Fun fact! Assuming this is some sort of quip about air conditioning, y'know that heat pumps are the same technology, right? We're all in agreement that we need to swap gas-burning with heat pumping because it's much less carbon-intensive. And air conditioning is just heat pumping, but pumping heat /out/
I've been struggling to convince people that air conditioning is actually not that energy-intensive and demonizing it is just silly. Especially because (con't)
@immibis @smokku the need for cooling happens to coincide with the months where solar energy production is highest.
The reason the power grid struggles more in the summer here than the winter is that huge swaths of buildings *burn gas* in the winter. That is much more climate-intensive, but it relieves the power grid. So when we stop burning gas and switch on the heat pumps, the grid is strained.
Long story short, this "cooling is a slippery slope!" mantra is silly and y'all better get over it
@TechConnectify @immibis @smokku
Marques Brownlee recently did a video where he discusses the balance of energy in his house since he installed solar roof and batteries.
TLDR: Even the full roof is not sufficient to keep with AC needs in Midwest and he ran a slight deficit in the summer.
AC power spikes are a problem for Texas grid during the summer in the same way as cold snaps are in the winter; and are also an issue for EU grids.
@andrei_chiffa I haven't watched that video, but to be honest I'm pretty skeptical of that conclusion. My worst daily average is about 25 kWh per day - and that includes charging my car. So either Marques's home is very wasteful or there's more to this.
Regardless, I am not of the mind that rooftop solar is all that great. At least, not how it functions right now. We need a lot of reforms to incentives and who pays for what before I'll push anyone in that direction.
It does depend a lot on the house design and a lot of houses with good isolation and passive cooling/heating abilities - yes.
His take is quite convincing and does make sense to me, but if you have more or more detailed data, I think it could be a good discussion point.
@andrei_chiffa You have me looking at my power bill history and as a point of comparison, my December power usage last year spiked up to about what it was in July because I had /two/ strands of C9 incandescent Christmas lights running 8 hours a night.
My home is new, and it's not that big (and is helped even further by being a townhome), but I wouldn't need a very large array to take care of my needs.
@TechConnectify@mas.to @andrei_chiffa@mastodon.social
I have a 22-panel array of 400w panels (6.48kW system). Living in the DC suburbs, it generates about 6500kWh/yr, or about 54% of our yearly needs. It's just me and my wife in a 1400sqft, gas-heated duplex. No EVs, but we're both home all day (since I've been primarily WFH for over a decade and she has medical issues that prevent her working outside the home) which means we probably have higher usage than were we both traditionally employed.
@ferricoxide @TechConnectify These are crazy numbers. Two of us live an average-sized one story house, with a huge OLED TV, AC, electric stove (induction) and oven, 24/7 server PC, dishwasher, and washer and dryer, and I only use 3000-3500kWh/yr, if not counting the EV.
@dansilov@mastodon.social @TechConnectify@mas.to
The bulk of a year's usage is in the cooling months, which runs from May through October – and is the highest in July and August (accounting for nearly 40% of the year's electric usage between the two months)– around here. And it's not that we keep the house cold: usually around 75°, which is far warmer than we keep it in the heating-months.
@TechConnectify @andrei_chiffa My take away from that video was that he produced a fair amount of power but also used a lot. At least it seemed a lot to me here in Australia