Based on the OFGEM figures, for a house that isn't on Economy 7, the average electricity use is 2700 kWh/year.  Which I reckon is about 308 W.  Hardly anything, really.

That assumes another form of heating, typically gas.  If we all switch to E7 storage heaters or heat pumps, it will be a lot more.

I'm pretty sure you know this from the way you worded the OP but having had to provide numbers of this sort... It Depends, firstly if they're really comparing annual energy consumption or some value for average (or typical maximum) power, and of course which source data was used (and when it's from... EVs etc will really start to throw these figures off).

In theory the original press release should specify the source, or at least be able to answer the question, if you really need  to know, but it'll almost certainly only be a useable figure for order of magnitude i.e. a sense of scale for the general public.

I really have no idea how much the people using the Home as a unit allow for a typical home.  Is it 308W as Simon suggests?  Can't we persuade them to use watts instead.  I am not sure how it can inform the public, as after all, domestic consumption is only about a third of total demand, but does the public know that?

this is like areas in football fields weights in buses and volumes in swimming pools - sloppy journalistic crap basically...

Anyone doing a real measurement knows the proper units - just  imagine going to the grocers and asking for 100 micro buses of apples please... or 100 nano olympic pools of beer at the bar - perhaps correct but not helpful,

Some sources are slightly better with their referencing and use real units and then explain it in houses for the benefit of those "qualified in PPE and classics", as Chris Whitty might have called them....  (well he did in his evidence to the Covid enquiry, as well as a lot of less flattering phrases.)

Good examples

"How big is a wind turbine? The average size of onshore turbines being manufactured today is around 2.5-3 MW, with blades of about 50 metres length. It can power more than 1,500 average EU households. An average offshore wind turbine of 3.6 MW can power more than 3,312 average EU households."

from

https://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/faq/

So they are assuming about 1.1 kW of peak generation capacity per EU "house".

Orstead make different assumption

OFGEM have their own unit for price caps, and that seems to be 3100 kWhr per year, or about (3100/365.24) =  350 watts.

take your pick.

Mike.

At an IET lecture years ago, I learned that an onshore wind turbine averages about 1/4 of its peak power, with an offshore turbine averaging about 1/3 of peak. So those figures seem about right.

Perhaps something like 300-500 long term average equivalent watts assuming non electric heating and hot water but it is a fair old spread and seems to depend on who is saying it and their agenda. Of course two 15 minute electric showers per day almost uses all of that allowance ;-)

M.

Thank you for that informative research.  Just as I thought, the Home is a very elastic unit.  At least a football pitch is pretty standard (well I assume it is as I know nothing about the game) although buses and swimming pools vary somewhat. However, I note that the latter are usually Olympic swimming pools, if that make any difference. (I am also a non-swimmer.)

With the current emphasis on fake news, accuracy is paramount.  Should not the IET be contacting the offenders (particularly the power generation companies) to persuade them to use proper units.

Paul Carlier said:

At least a football pitch is pretty standard

Football pitches also vary widely; granted professional pitches are more tightly constrained but even then with considerable tolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_pitch#/media/File:Soccer_pitch_dimensions.png

But people know roughly how big they are, so they're a good indicator of roughly how much land other things occupy for people like me who can't visualise 20,000m2 (~3 FP).

Likewise is this generator going to power the whole of the UK and benefitting everyone or is it just going to reduce the bill a little for the owner of one house?

If someone's trying to use those figures for calcuation the original data in correct units should be used.

Olympic pool volumes are typically assumed 2.5 megalitres but it is the length and width that are fixed, and the minimum  depth at some points, so even then there is some variation - a local authority swimming pool for normal folk is not standardised at all but is normally a lot shorter.

Now pints, I can get my head (and drinking hand) around.

I have no problem with informal units in brackets after the real ones - it is the untethered use of unofficial units on their own that causes problems.

("I'm just off for a kilosecond tea break" (*) seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say at this point - maybe it's the company I keep. ...)

Mike

(for those using non-SI units, the kilo-second lies handily   between 15mins (900sec) and 20 mins (1200sec))

All of these things are not formal units of power and are only used to provide context to non-expert recipients of information, and as such are variable in size and are general averages (of whatever form) - and aimed to give people an understanding of scale only.