this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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Does anyone know a way of calculating the energy needed to heat a home/room? (feddit.uk)
submitted 2 years ago by rmuk@feddit.uk to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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Does anyone know a way of calculating the amount of heating I need to maintain an average temperature in terms of kWh of heating per 24 hours? Ideally one taking into account weather conditions.

I have a pretty big Home Assistant setup which includes switches for individually controlling all the (electric) heaters in my home. I'm also using an electricity supplier that changes the amount they charge every 30 minutes to reflect supply and demand. Given these rates are published at least 24 hours in advance I can currently choose a number of hours to run the heaters per day and have an automation automatically select the cheapest periods. I'm paying less per kWh for heating than I would if I was using a gas boiler. Plus, it's all from renewables, so working out that number of hours is the next step.

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[–] TDCN@feddit.dk 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I have had collegues that did entire PHD's on this topic with giant simulations and machine learning... It's just to say that this is a very difficult problem to solve exactly, so go easy on yourself and find a simple approximation or something good enough to get you the edge on the prices you pay for heating. I see some good ideas in the comments already, but keep it simple is my best advice.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So if I solve the problem, do I get their PHDs? Would I have to pay postage?

[–] TDCN@feddit.dk 3 points 2 years ago

I think you'll have a really really good product/algorithm to sell for the big HVAC and heating companies... You wouldn't have to worry about saving a bit of moneys here and there anymore that's for sure 😅