how much inverting power would you need to run your whole house 100% of the time

1201 said:

What's your average consumption in this graph? Looks like a lot!

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I’ll get back to you on the average, don’t infer it from the graph.
I’ll download the CSV file and crunch the spreadsheet.

It’s 400A service everything electric, so I’m not too surprised.
A little startled, perhaps.

I have 150A service feeding a panel on the outside of the house. The house is all-electric. I have TWO EV's. This panel now has 3 breakers besides the main.
- A 100A feeds the secondary on an ATS common to a 100A sub-panel with everything on it. (on)
- A 50A secondary to an ATS that feeds a charging pedestal in the driveway. (off)
- A 40A secondary to an ATS that feeds the range. (on)
- Only two actual people. One who can't do enough laundry to satisfy her needs.
- A demand limiter: I put an EV switch . . . On the HWH and Dryer, with the Dryer priority. (30A breaker, ~18A actual).
- Micro Air on the 4T Goodman package unit.

I have only seen demand over 90A once, and only for a brief time, peaked just over 100A the car was charging, HWH, kitchen was busy, AC cut on, my software monitor cut the car charger out. My noise load is around 1000 to 1500W. Current mean is around 6000-6500W, it may go up another 500W in July/Aug, we shall see.

I routinely bang up to around 18KW from time to time, generally charging and cooking and cleaning on a weekend. I have 2x12KW inverter output (sig). I split my power out with the ATS to a sub-panel about a year before I put in the solar. I bought a monitor and started recording my use as I moved circuits one at a time to the new sub-panel. Adding the solar was a simple matter of attaching the AC bus from the inverter to the ATS once I confirmed peak demand. I think most people would be hard pressed to actually hit 100A. In a 1500sqft all electric.

Oven range is the least of your worries, it's kind of a joke, but can create some load fun if you turn everything on high all at once and start pre-heating the oven for a pizza or something. You just don't, but it could hit 7000 in some mythical world. It's mean usage is also very low you just don't have it on that much, even with a family.

Toaster Oven, Coffee pot, Microwave, dishwasher (heater), Blow Dryer, curlers, etc create a dynamic, of 500 - 1000 watts or so each, generally don't notice these much either.

HWH is annoying and un-relenting. I have a small 40gal. Always wants to be on with everything else, but does cycle, since I have it on the same circuit as the clothes dryer, I just figure that 18A in. This is something I would like to eliminate, but I'm not in a rush, it's never caused an issue.

Here the HVAC is also un-relenting starting about now. Peaks right at 5000W on those 115F days.

If I didn't have the EV's I'd never hit 100A unless I went out of my way. Add in a couple pool/well pumps or something, you might brush a bit higher.

Just got my system fully running a week ago and shut off the grid breakers. My highest peak was 8500watts. 4500w water heater, 2 fridges, chest freezer, air purifier, dw, 36k dual head mini split and a variety of other loads simultaneously.

The inverter has 12kw output. The house is all electric except there is an old oil furnace as backup to the wood stove and mini split. 1 4500w water heater and a hP water heater. Electric range and second electric wall oven. Dryer and so on. I don't for see any real issue for us with the 12kw unless somebody gets careless with drying clothes, while cooking Thanks Giving dinner and somebody is showering. I detest the electric water heater the most! may consider switch out elements if it becomes a problem. It was our single largest load by far overall for today.

My family was away for 2 days and I realized that I could get away with a 6000xp on my own

Oh, and I haven't got the well hooked up yet.
Future build for off grid will be planned out better than this 70s ranch.

1201 said:

just curious what everyone's peak demand is and how much it would take to be completely on inverter.

for me the highest demand I've ever had was 19.8kw so I can confidently say that I could run my whole house "off-grid" with 20kw of inverting power.

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All Electric home.

Peak demand for me measured over a year with Emporia was about the same 20kw so that’s how I sized my system.

Now if turned everything on at once I would probably go over but our routine over a year showed 20kw max.

So far it’s been accurate.

grebaba said:

I average about 161 KW a month but that includes my paint booth and full auto shop.
I don't have near enough room for the panels I would need to go all solar.
I have seen 180 to 200 KW a month when I am busy.
Greg.

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You sure that’s a month? 161kWh a month is pretty low.

ricardocello said:

Peak AC Consumption? That’s a job for Victron VRM.
I never thought to look, but since 1 Jan 2024 it was almost 30kW!
View attachment 223255

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Do you have Aux strip heat?
Might have been a cold day in February that needed some extra heat..

Lots of confusion over kWh and kW going on here, saying the most you have seen is 148kW in a month is like saying my car does 100MPH to the gallon.

grebaba said:

I average about 161 KW a month but that includes my paint booth and full auto shop.
I don't have near enough room for the panels I would need to go all solar.
I have seen 180 to 200 KW a month when I am busy.
Greg.

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Your sentence structure implies you mean KWH and not KW(peak). I use ~ 115KWH per day. I live in the burbs on 1/4+ acre lot. I've been on grid 8 hours one evening since February in an all-electric home. 210KWH/30 ~= 7KWH / day. Ten (10) 400W panels would handle it most of the time with a pair of 5kwh batteries, and a small inverter. Do you live in a trailer park with a paint booth at the end of the trailer next to your neighbor?

shavermcspud said:

Lots of confusion over kWh and kW going on here, saying the most you have seen is 148kW in a month is like saying my car does 100MPH to the gallon.

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I doubt my grandfathers place used 150KWH/month. Just some lighting/outlets, a well pump, fridge. I think he had ~50A service, no AC.

The house I live in needs about 6kw to run everything except the hot water heaters and the stove.
With the stove and hotwater heaters (which I don't have on solar) I can reach 25kw peak.

The house that I own next door will need 120kw of solar minimum eventually to possibly 144kw.

Also all of that I just posted is kw not kwh.

I'm not confused I use 20kwh a day and a peak of 4kw give or take in an all electric home but on the other hand a freezing cold winter here is 65°f that's when my wife and every other local starts to resemble an Eskimo, so any power hungry heating is non existent here, even cars/trucks don't have heating just a blue AC knob.

ThaiTaffy said:

I'm not confused I use 20kwh a day and a peak of 4kw give or take in an all electric home but on the other hand a freezing cold winter here is 65°f that's when my wife and every other local starts to resemble an Eskimo, so any power hungry heating is non existent here, even cars/trucks don't have heating just a blue AC knob.

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My highest daily I could see in the past week for a single day here was :

Load(Power used by the house) / PV covered of the load / Battery Charged / Battery Discharged / Grid covered of the load

Crowz said:

My highest daily I could see in the past week for a single day here was :

Load(Power used by the house) / PV covered of the load / Battery Charged / Battery Discharged / Grid covered of the load

61.8 kWh

19.2 kWh

0.0 kWh

0.0 kWh

43.8 kWh

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Doesn't seem too far fetched but considering I've seen Americans on the forum who literally exceed half my monthly consumption in a day maybe I've lost all reality of an average load. What's more entertaining to me as far as usage is Thailand are pushing EV cards while many in the country can physically only get 60kwh max per day from the grid.

Nobodybusiness said:

Do you have Aux strip heat?
Might have been a cold day in February that needed some extra heat..

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Probably.

Two water heaters (6 kW each), two HVACs with strip heat (10 kW? each on super cold day).
Two conventional electric ovens (5 kW? each).
Any of these would do it right there.

Acutual peak wattage if everyone were to turn on everything in the house would be scary.

20 kW of panels, 60 kWh of batteries and now that we've hit A/C season it's not keeping up. It doesn't help that it's hitting 90 every day (with 75 dew point) but cloudy with thunderstorms that keep popping up. Yesterday we got less than an hour of sun.

ThaiTaffy said:

What's more entertaining to me as far as usage is Thailand are pushing EV cards while many in the country can physically only get 60kwh max per day from the grid.

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But your EV's are likely to be a version of those little 3 wheel buzzy truck things that currently emit more smoke than is physically possible from a straw exhaust. USA alarm standby battery = Thai 100 mile range.

I have (2) 6500EXs running our house. Currently even with AC running they are both under 50% load.

Edit: 15kW of panels. We are in NH and this provides 60% of our yearly power.

Electric dryers, stoves, and water heaters are really the things that bump a normal house up the needs pole. (I'm ignoring first world problems like pool heaters, heated floors, etc.)

Quattrohead said:

But your EV's are likely to be a version of those little 3 wheel buzzy truck things that currently emit more smoke than is physically possible from a straw exhaust. USA alarm standby battery = Thai 100 mile range.

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It's all Tesla and byd here mate don't forget we're neighbours with china we get the new technology before you do, cough whole country has had fibre to the home for 10 years or more though they had to because the grifters were stealing all the copper broadband cables days after they were fitted.

Crowz said:

The house I live in needs about 6kw to run everything except the hot water heaters and the stove.
With the stove and hotwater heaters (which I don't have on solar) I can reach 25kw peak.

The house that I own next door will need 120kw of solar minimum eventually to possibly 144kw.

Also all of that I just posted is kw not kwh.

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What on earth do you have that requires 500A+ service? (125KW = 240v * 500A (single phase)).

ksmithaz1 said:

What on earth do you have that requires 500A+ service? (125KW = 240v * 500A (single phase)).

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Cannabis farm using sodium bulbs and he has a few electric chairs as he does eco executions for limestone CF

I understand the question being 'how much inverting power' well my off-grid system recently upgraded from 5Kw to 6Kw can deliver 6kw constant and 12kw for up to 5 seconds. I am under paneled at 4,400 watts and can squeeze another one in to take me to 4,950 watts while keeping within the MMPT VOC range of 450v for the array. If more power is required the batteries make up the difference or I can turn on the diesel 7.5Kw generator to feed the inverter A/C power if really necessary. BTW I'm 100% off-grid for both power and water.

My daily loads are really quite small compared to many of you, my biggest loads are:supplimented

Inverter Technology (often draws much less than max shown)
fridge at up to 350 watts
washing machine 500w
air-con 1,200 watts

Non-Inverter
Water Pump 350 watts
Gaming PC / Screen 450 watts
Interior Lighting 100 watts max
Exterior Flood Lighting (Self contained solar)
Ceiling Fans 120 watt total
Floor Fan 80 watts
Power tools 250 watts to 1,000 watts
Cement Mixer 850 watts
Insulated Immersion water heater 2,500 watts (not yet installed, will set to work when battery >80% and battery load <1%)
Various low power USB chargers, laptops, tablets etc <100 watts

The only thing that really puts any strain on the system is my Mig welder which for larger jobs I run directly from the generator. I have quite a lot of building projects lined up and to complete which is why I mentioned the tools. If money were no object I'd connect up another inverter and throw another array on the roof but my current goal it to get another battery bank to support nighttime aircon during the hot season. To conclude 6Kw is enough for me 10Kw to 12Kw would be nice but I feel battery storage is the real key to utilising an inverter of any size.

Crowz said:

The house I live in needs about 6kw to run everything except the hot water heaters and the stove.
With the stove and hotwater heaters (which I don't have on solar) I can reach 25kw peak.

The house that I own next door will need 120kw of solar minimum eventually to possibly 144kw.

Also all of that I just posted is kw not kwh.

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120kw of solar. did you say house? or hotel?

ksmithaz1 said:

I doubt my grandfathers place used 150KWH/month. Just some lighting/outlets, a well pump, fridge. I think he had ~50A service, no AC.

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no ac? in what part of the world? in texas no ac can mean death

ThaiTaffy said:

I'm not confused I use 20kwh a day and a peak of 4kw give or take in an all electric home but on the other hand a freezing cold winter here is 65°f that's when my wife and every other local starts to resemble an Eskimo, so any power hungry heating is non existent here, even cars/trucks don't have heating just a blue AC knob.

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thats very interesting. you must have some good load management. I use 30-40kwh a day for most of the year but my daily demand is around 10kw peak

ThaiTaffy said:

Doesn't seem too far fetched but considering I've seen Americans on the forum who literally exceed half my monthly consumption in a day maybe I've lost all reality of an average load. What's more entertaining to me as far as usage is Thailand are pushing EV cards while many in the country can physically only get 60kwh max per day from the grid.

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I have friends who try to keep their texas house at 63 in the middle of summer when its 110 degrees outside, in their 5000 sq ft house. yes, that bill is HIGH!

ksmithaz1 said:

HWH is annoying and un-relenting. I have a small 40gal. Always wants to be on with everything else, but does cycle, since I have it on the same circuit as the clothes dryer, I just figure that 18A in. This is something I would like to eliminate, but I'm not in a rush, it's never caused an issue.

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hmm. good point . I have a 40 gallon too and in the winter its my highest load. it does feel like its always coming on lol. youve got me thinking maybe I should switch the elements to 2.5kw from the 4.5 kw currently

Peaks are the issue for me. My 18 can run my whole house, but there are brief peaks above its max inversion, so I would have to throttle something. That being said, 2 18s would carry anything I could throw at them. This is summer, of course. Winter, I could run on a Harbor Freight $49.99 inverter, lol.