Choice'an electrical system
Choice of an electrical installation
The first step selecting a power source (generator, battery system, connection to the public grid, solar…) is to calculate the electrical power it must provide.
For this, start by listing all electrical appliances to power and their numbers : bulbs, refrigerator, TV, immersion heater, fans, air conditioning, computers…
For each device, determine the maximum power required to power. Power is expressed in Watt (The), should not be confused with the energy expressed in Watt heure (Wh).
To know the power of your devices, two possibilities :
- Either you already have the equipment and you can find this value in the instructions or user manual,
- Either you have not purchased the product and you should ask the seller (and if possible take the opportunity to pick a few greedy appliance electricity).
Another solution : you can find on this page the magnitude of the power consumed by the most common electrical appliances.
| ATTENTION | |
| ! | Take into account the maximum power and not the average power or the power rating. Apparatus with electric motors (pump, blower, refrigerator…) often equal to the maximum power 3 or 4 times their average power. |
Once you have gathered this information, you can calculate the maximum power of your installation by adding the maximum power of all devices to feed. You get a figure in Watts.
Example :
For a house containing 6 40W bulbs, a refrigerator and TV.
The refrigerator has an average consumption of 250W but a maximum consumption of 700W. The TV has a consumption of 200W.
The maximum capacity of the plant is :
6 x 40 + 700 + 200 = 1140W
This requires that your source has an effective power less than 1140W, for example a generator of 1.2 kilowatts suited (provided whether the power PRP).
| ! | Be careful not to forget the devices containing a heating resistor (coffee maker, Kettle, plate or electric furnace, hairdryer…), they may seem trivial but have very high consumption. |
To give an order of magnitude, know that the average power per capita in the world is about 700W.
