How many megawatts do you need to power 10,000 homes?

Question

How many megawatts do you need to power 10,000 homes?

Answer 1

According to the reference, electricity consumption by 107 million U.S. households in 2001 totaled 1,140 billion kW-h. That's an average power consumption of 1200 Watts. So, on average, you'd need 12 MW to power 10,000 homes. But consumption depends heavily on the time of day and on the season. During a temperate night, these homes might consume power at a rate of only a few hundred watts. In the middle of a hot summer day, consumption can be many tens of thousands of watts. Power utilities know this and continually bring power stations on and off line as needed.

Answer 2

Average usage in the US is about 1000 watts or 1 kW. 10000 homes will need 10000 kW or 10 MW.

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Answer 3

It varies, but if you assume 10 kW per house, it would be 100 MW.

Answer 4

Of course this depends on the homes and the season and the time of day etc.

A normal sized home in the U.S. is often wired for about 150 amps.  That would mean that if the wiring were taking its maximum possible load, the power would be 150*120=18000 W

The AVERAGE load a household would actually use is much lower than that and the PEAK load is quite a bit lower.

Assume about 40 amps for a conservative estimate of peak load, that would be about 4500 W (say 5000 W for easy math)

5000 W is half a megawatt

for average use, the U.S Dept of Energy website reports that an average household uses about 1 KW averaged over the whole year.

1 Kw which is 1000 W is one tenth of a megawatt.

So, you would need between 1000 and 5000 megawatts to supply 10,000 homes, depending on peak load issues (you need to be able to supply electricity for the worst moment, like a hot afternoon when everybody's air conditioners are working hard, not just the average use)

Answer 5

That would solely depend on how much wattage each home will use & if usage is constant.

1Megawatt is 1,000,000 watts. So if there is 10,000 homes, that means each can use 10,000 watts per home.