Energy Estimates

Why Do you Need to Estimate Energy Consumption?

If you plan to start using solar power, then one of the key things you need to know is how much energy do you need per day?  You need a daily figure because the sun is only available in daily cycles.

If you are planning to convert your whole house as-is, then its easy, just look up what your average monthly kWh consumption is from your council bills and divide by 30 to get a daily average.

However, most people cannot afford to convert their whole home over to solar power, so they have to try and estimate what energy is required for specific portions of their home (for example many people start with only selected lights, TV and computers).  Once you have that figure, you can use our Solar Panels and Batteries calculator to estimate the number of of solar panels and batteries you might need.

The best way to estimate your energy consumption for any length of time is to use our PowerProphet software. It has been designed specifically to do that and has some quite sophisticated functionality to handle every day situations.

Failing that, you can try build a rough estimate using some of the basic calculators below.

If you need to include energy used to heat water, use our Water Heating calculator to estimate the amount of energy a conventional geyser uses to heat water each day.

To estimate an accumulated daily energy consumption figure, add all the different estimates together.

Lighting

Watching TV

Computers

Other Appliances

If you know what your appliance power rating is (in Watts), then you can use the calculator below to estimate the daily energy consumption of that appliance.  If you don’t know the power rating, try looking it up in the PowerSaving Appliance Database.

Please note that these calculations are offered as a rough guide based on various assumptions which may not be applicable in your case.  You should do your own calculations to be sure.