How many UK households per 1 megawatt?

Answer 1

Probably far more than you would expect.

When engineers determine the 'load' represented by residences, you don't add up the total load of each residence. Instead, they take into account the ADMD, or 'after diversity maximum demand', of the residential loads. ADMD takes into account that it is unlikely that all the residences will be using their maximum power at the same time. In much the same way as you, as an individual, are unlikely to be using your cooker, microwave, dishwasher, washing machine, toaster, bread-maker, etc., all at the same time, this is reflected across a large number of residences.

Furthermore, while one residence is consuming a lot of energy, the next door neighbour is likely to be at work, or out shopping, so might not be using very much energy at all. So, when determining the load per residence, the figure used is much less than you might imagine, and gets even less as the number of residences increases.

Back in the late '60s, before the widespread adoption of electric central heating, the ADMD was typically taken as being just 3 kW per residence (based on this figure, your 1 MW would be able to serve 333 residences!). Demand meters installed in the area substation serving these residences indicated that the actual load per residence figure would actually be very much lower than this! Since the widespread introduction of computers that are able to monitor the actual energy consumption of individual residences, the ADMD figure can now be determined with a greater degree of accuracy.

Perhaps some other reader can indicate what the current typical ADMD might be?