I'm not sure if any campsite owners frequent this forum... if by any chance you do & you could help with my query I would be hugely appreciative.
I am working on a University final year project for which I am doing a feasibility study on renewable energy installation for a (fictional) campsite. One of the data points I need is a baseline energy requirement for the project.
As such, if anyone has a number for the rough annual consumption (probably in kWh) you can expect per electric hookup point that would be incredibly helpful? Or just what the yearly or monthly kWh consumption is for your whole site and the number of electrified pitches you have? I'd also be interested in consumption data for statics and/or 'glamping cabins' if available? I realise consuption probably varies hugely from site to site, and season to season, but really anything would be helpful as a start point!
I could certainly work out a ballpark figure just by thinking of my own use when we camp and multiplying up, but having something more realistic would be really helpful.
Thanks for taking the time to look at this and huge thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
Cheers, Barry
P.S. I know it must be a rough time for site owners at the moment... please hang on in there - just know that all us campers are ready and itching to get back out there as soon as this 'orrible situation allows!
Don't forget to leave a review of the campsites you have visited this year or last!
Hi Bazpoint, I'm not a site owner but am a retired electrical engineer. Not sure how electrical savvy you are so I may be teaching granny to suck eggs here.
We always estimate a maximum demand or MD in kVA. This is the maximum usage in a half hour period.
We size the incoming supply to suit this with a suitable allowance for future load growth or me making a mistake in the sums.
The figures you are asking for are the consumption which is the total amount used throughout the year. This will vary considerably throughout the day and throughout the season. When the site is in high occupation the demand will be high but this might only be for 2 night a week at weekend or say 1 week for a school holiday. Times outside these periods will have very much lower consumption.
Any energy supply must match the actual consumption at the same time as it is being consumed. With renewables such as solar or wind, consumption varies but does not always match the load profile of the site.
So you really need to be able to assess what the load profile will be. It may mean you have to incorporate storage or be able to sell to the grid.
Thanks for your kind reply... interesting to hear your perspective.
You make good points regarding meeting demand with supply - fortunately they're not ones I quite need to take account of for this project..... well, that's not entirely true - they are factors I need to discuss, but we have certain leeway to take liberties with the maths. It's a general Sustainable Tech module (rather than Engineering or similar) so the focus is on comparing advantages of various techs, environmental implications and costings over a project lifetime. We can largely gloss over or heavily generalise variations at the daily or weekly level, only seasonal trends are really important. Saying that we can incorporate discussion of energy storage solutions, or factor feed-in into our long-term calculations, though they are not the focus in this case.
I realise that probably sounds a bit silly, & I'm sure it wouldn't fly in the 'real world', but I guess it's designed to test us just on the bits it needs to!
Saying that, I would love to get hold of a campsite's on-season, shoulder-season, & off-season max, min, & average loads.... but frankly I thought asking for such detail would be taking the micky a bit and unlikely to get a response.
With some very general yearly numbers I'd at least be able to use them as a basis for some sensible seasonal estimates - hopefully my marker won't be a campsite expert so as long as they're ballpark reasonable I should be ok.
Campsites have pitches with electric supplies. These can be 6Amp, 10Amp or 16Amp so 1.5kW, 2.5kW or 4kW.
The worst time would be and early Easter holiday with frosty weather and a full site. Each van would have electric heating of about 2kW mostly on a thermostat. There will be other electrical kit but diversity on the heating would probably offset that so allow 2kW per pitch for Maximum demand.
For that Easter week average consumption probably 36kWh per pitch per day.
Off peak make a guess, weather warming so heating used less and very few pitches occupied.
Later school holidays will not have much heating. Consumption probably be say 8kWh per pitch per day.
Thanks again Navver.... that's quite similar to the estimates I'd sketched out in case I couldn't get any hard data, so glad to have a second opinion back them up, nice one.
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Topic: A question for campsite owners
