Reply To: Focus fusion and transportation

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:

Oh, yeah, I drooled on my keyboard the first time I visited those links, lol. Now to get a FF license so I can afford one of them.

15kW in my opinion is only on the low end of first shift hours. I think it would be higher after 5:00 local time. My range, furnace, and hot water are all gas-fired, which would change if the township eliminated or even reversed at least my electric and gas bill.

Yep, grid expansion will come down to the time required to finance and permit each installation. That’s a very cool thing because once somebody breaks the ice all bets are off regarding how fast the demand for FF installations and electricity is going to take off.

Here’s a sample study of the kW usage impact of upgrading AC units in Florida: http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publications/html/FSEC-PF-379-04/ . Note the overall usage mentioned — about half of all annual power goes to heating and cooling. The peak cooling demand even in the summer is ~3kW, much less with modern Variable Speed Air Handler units. I conclude from this that a peak demand per household would be <<10kW. Therefore, 1 MW / 100 homes. Total power used during the year was around 17MWh, or about 2kW average demand, with daytime peaks in the 7 kW range.

Note the para in this site that refers to peak demand usually in the 3-6 kW range, but sometimes “as high as 8 kW”. So I think my figures above are very reasonable.

Budgeting a 15kW peak demand is at about a 2:1 safety margin. At that level, a single 5MW FF generator would be able to safely cope with 5000/15 = 333 residences. Commercial and industrial users are of course a completely separate issue and market.