I recently came across the National Renewable Energy Laboratories Building Typology web dashboard (and associated paper), a very neat interface for exploring a huge simulation of US residential energy use built by NREL (a similar one for commercial buildings is coming later this year.) Using this, we can get a super granular (if simulated) look at exactly where energy goes in US homes, and see which parameters affect it. So let’s take a look and see what we find.
Mar 2, 2022·edited Mar 2, 2022Liked by Brian Potter
Europe is even more diverse than US. It includes everything from passive houses to brutalist and khrushchyovka-style blocks of flats made in the 60 and 70 out of plain concrete and no insulation, some dependent of large-scale waste heat from nearby industry.
Houses also tend to have higher thermal mass and require less air conditioning - because of their geographic location, a simple day/night average is suficient to keep most homes most of the year free from heat, with the other side of the coin being increased heating requirements during winter.
Another large difference is the amount of non-heating electricity used. Until the move to induction technology in the last decade, electric cookstoves tended to be rare and most people preferred gas appliances. Classical, resistive tumble driers are almost unheard of and unavailable for purchase. It's quite shocking to see that newer homes in the US use more domestic electric energy than the combined requirements for heating and hot water preparation.
From what I understand, the normal electric hookup in the US is 2x120V, 100A (24KW), there is a move to 200Amps and older homes tend to have 50 Amps lines. This is 50%-100% more that what the equivalent house in Europe would have - many apartments are served by a single 32A/230V line (7KW).
Re: messy data, the sample size can get low for some of the rows (you can see the sample count if you hover over each data point; anything less than 100 samples will have higher uncertainty). In future iterations, we hope to better convey the uncertainty graphically.
Thanks Brian, this is fascinating. The data verified something I had suspected for a long time about differences across climate zones; i.e. that a house in a hot climate uses less energy than one in a cold climate. I was also intrigued by the relative lack of difference in energy consumption between multi-family and single family detached. It demonstrates the importance of continuing to focus on energy efficiency improvements in single family homes. And, personal solar systems.
Thank you for taking a deeper look at this data. Not surprised that there may be little to no difference in energy usage per sqaure foot as it relates to building code. Owners and builders understand that spending a few dollars more for more insulation will translate to cost savings and possibly comfort. The drive towards energy efficient homes has been happening for decades. Builders and owners will skip "best practice" codes when it comes to having an electrical outlet every 5 inches, every outlet on its own GFI circuit, railing height, bath fans, tempered glass, etc.
Europe is even more diverse than US. It includes everything from passive houses to brutalist and khrushchyovka-style blocks of flats made in the 60 and 70 out of plain concrete and no insulation, some dependent of large-scale waste heat from nearby industry.
Houses also tend to have higher thermal mass and require less air conditioning - because of their geographic location, a simple day/night average is suficient to keep most homes most of the year free from heat, with the other side of the coin being increased heating requirements during winter.
Another large difference is the amount of non-heating electricity used. Until the move to induction technology in the last decade, electric cookstoves tended to be rare and most people preferred gas appliances. Classical, resistive tumble driers are almost unheard of and unavailable for purchase. It's quite shocking to see that newer homes in the US use more domestic electric energy than the combined requirements for heating and hot water preparation.
From what I understand, the normal electric hookup in the US is 2x120V, 100A (24KW), there is a move to 200Amps and older homes tend to have 50 Amps lines. This is 50%-100% more that what the equivalent house in Europe would have - many apartments are served by a single 32A/230V line (7KW).
Hi Brian, thanks for highlighting our work! Could you let me know more about the double-counting issue you're seeing (contact info: https://www.nrel.gov/research/staff/eric-wilson.html)?
Re: messy data, the sample size can get low for some of the rows (you can see the sample count if you hover over each data point; anything less than 100 samples will have higher uncertainty). In future iterations, we hope to better convey the uncertainty graphically.
Thanks Brian, this is fascinating. The data verified something I had suspected for a long time about differences across climate zones; i.e. that a house in a hot climate uses less energy than one in a cold climate. I was also intrigued by the relative lack of difference in energy consumption between multi-family and single family detached. It demonstrates the importance of continuing to focus on energy efficiency improvements in single family homes. And, personal solar systems.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your tireless work on this topic. I just wanted to point out that I featured this post here:
https://www.libertyrpf.com/p/282-amazon-cloudflares-meta-product
Cheers 💚 🥃
Very interesting, thank you for doing this Brian! 💚 🥃
Thank you for taking a deeper look at this data. Not surprised that there may be little to no difference in energy usage per sqaure foot as it relates to building code. Owners and builders understand that spending a few dollars more for more insulation will translate to cost savings and possibly comfort. The drive towards energy efficient homes has been happening for decades. Builders and owners will skip "best practice" codes when it comes to having an electrical outlet every 5 inches, every outlet on its own GFI circuit, railing height, bath fans, tempered glass, etc.