Tall building electrical power usage

[dubina]

Anybody know a source or an algorithm to estimate (roughly) how many KW a tall building might use in a period of time?

[SD_Phil]

I'd imagine a million factors would come into play here:

Date of construction/energy efficiency/materials

Primary use (residential, commercial, industrial)

Location

etc.

But...yeah, I don't have this kind of info. Maybe any general formula would have such a wide Margin of error as to be kind of useless without being more specific about some of the factors?

[dubina]

I understand. What I'm trying to do is to estimate the feasibility / sensibility of mounting one or more wind horizontal or vertical axis wind turbines on the roofs of buildings.

If the building is a really tall building, I suppose any wind benefit would be a small part of the building's total usage...therefore, probably not so practical. If the building is low with a large roof plan, adequate roof support and good wind, putting a small, lightweight vertical axis wind farm on the roof might make more sense.

I can estimate the case for low buildings with large roof areas (roughly) and get actual usage, but I have no idea how much electricity tall buildings use.

I read a post here titled "About power distribution" by MSOE_superforce87, but he or she only described power distribution, not usage.

A ballpark estimate is probably all I need for the time being.

[STR]

I know the last real reply was in November, but given that it's already been bumped, I might as well offer an answer:

Bahrain World Trade Center

The two towers are linked via three skybridges, each holding a 225KW wind turbine, totalling to 675kW of wind power production.

...

The wind turbines are expected to provide 11% to 15% of the towers' total power consumption, or approximately 1.1 to 1.3 GWh a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain_World_Trade_Center

That works out to 4500kW to 6136kW power draw at any one time.

New York World Trade Center

According to the agreement with the NYPA, UTC Power is to supply four 1.2 MW fuel cell systems, making it one of the largest installations in the world.

http://cleantech.com/news/2972/utc-p...-fuel-cell-bid

Energy efficiency is a priority at the rebuilt World Trade Center, and a major piece of the green-building plan was installed on site starting in late October: fuel cells. Six fuel cells -- each nearly as large as a shipping container -- are now in place to supply about 30 percent of the power to 3 and 4 WTC.

6 units at 1.2MW each, in total providing 30% of the centers power runs out to 24MW for the 4 towers, or roughly 6MW each, in line with the Bahrain building. So it seems a modern green building on the scale of 2 million sqft draws 6MW.

[Alpha]

The building of the lignite fired power station "Niederaussem, Unit K" is 172 metres tall. It has a generation capacity of 1012 MW.