In Pakistan, data for household electricity consumption are available in the form of monthly electricity bills only, and, therefore, are not helpful in establishing appliance-wise consumption. Further, it does not help in establishing the relationship among the household electricity consumption and various driving factors. This study aimed to unlock the household electricity consumption in Pakistan by analyzing electricity bills and investigating the impact of various socioeconomic, demographic, and dwelling parameters and usage of different appliances. The methodology adopted in this study was survey-based data collection of the residential sector. For this purpose, data were collected from 523 dwellings through surveys and interviews in Mirpur city. The results of the data analysis revealed that the average household electricity consumption is 2469 kWh/year with an average family size of seven and an average floor area of 78.91 m². Based on possession of various appliances, the households were categorized into four types and their consumption patterns were established and compared. Air Conditioned (AC) houses consume 44% more electricity compared to the non-AC houses, whereas an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) consumes electricity equivalent to an AC. The research findings are useful for policy makers and building designers and are discussed in the conclusion section.

Small-Scale Turbines (SSTs) are among the most important energy-extraction-enabling technologies in domestic power production systems. However, owing to centrifugal forces, the high rotating speed of SSTs causes excessive strains in the aerofoil portions of the turbine blades. In this paper, a structural performance analysis is provided by combining Finite Element Methods (FEM) with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The primary objective was to examine the mechanical stresses of a Small-Scale Radial Turbine (SSRT) constructed utilizing 3D printing technology and a novel plastic material, RGD 525, to construct a SSRT model experimentally. After introducing a suitable turbine aerodynamics model, the turbine assembly and related loads were translated to a structural model. Subsequently, a structural analysis was conducted under various loading situations to determine the influence of different rotational speed values and blade shapes on the stress distribution and displacement. Maximum von Mises and maximum main stresses are significantly affected by both the rotor rotational speed and the working fluid input temperature, according to the findings of this research. The maximum permitted deformation, on the other hand, was more influenced by rotational speed, while the maximum allowable fatigue life was more influenced by rotating speed and fluid intake temperature. Also, the region of the tip shroud in the rotor had greater deflection values of 21% of the blade tip width.

Actual measured hourly electricity consumption profile (HEP) helps the building engineer in numerous ways, e.g. for the optimum and accurate sizing of a solar PV for their building, for identifying abnormal peaks and drops, for negotiating with utility supplier etc. Conventional electricity meters do not have features to provide hourly consumption; instead these provide daily or monthly consumption. In such situation, it becomes difficult to make a precise estimate of building’s hourly consumption and a reliable and quick method is desired to estimate hourly consumption. Using four years of measured hourly electricity consumption data for three residence halls, this paper aims to use the central tendency method to develop a dimensionless typical HEP for this building category. Based on the skewed nature of hourly data distributions, median was selected as suitable measure of central tendency. Therefore, using the hourly median values, a typical HEP was developed. The proposed HEP was tested and compared with the actual HEPs of three other similar buildings and it was found that the estimated HEPs matched very well with actual HEPs with a maximum hourly RMSE of 0.9%. Finally, limitations of the proposed HEP are discussed and some recommendations are made in this regard.