Domestic energy consumption is the amount of energy that is spent on the different appliances used within housing. The amount of energy used per household varies widely depending on the standard of living of the country, climate, and the age and type of residence.
In the United States as of 2008, in an average household in a temperate climate, the yearly use of household energy can be composed as follows:
| Average domestic energy consumption per household in the United States | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heating | 12000 kW·h/yr (1400 watts) | |||
| Hot water | 3000 kW·h/yr (340 watts) | |||
| Cooling/refrigeration | 1200 kW·h/yr (140 watts) | |||
| Lighting | 1200 kW·h/yr (140 watts) | |||
| Washing and drying | 1000 kW·h/yr (110 watts) | |||
| Cooking | 1000 kW·h/yr (110 watts) | |||
| Miscellaneous electric load | 600 kW·h/yr (70 watts) | |||
This equates to an average instantaneous power consumpton of 2 kW at any given time.
Households in different parts of the world will have differing levels of consumption, based on climate and income.
Famous quotes containing the words domestic, energy and/or consumption:
“Mighty few young black women are doin’ domestic work. And I’m glad. That’s why I want my kids to go to school. This one lady told me, “All you people are gettin’ like that.” I said, “I’m glad.” There’s no more gettin’ on their knees.”
—Maggie Holmes, African American domestic worker. As quoted in Working, book 3, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption ... is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)