One of the interesting things that I just noticed that you'll see is that the amount of electrical generation is often given in "household" units. "This (source of electrical power) will provide enough electricity for X number of homes/number of families/whatever."

It's very intuitive. It's also very useless. Civilization depends on more than just providing power to homes.

To put it in perspective, the world's current largest windfarm is Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas, which supplies enough power for "more than 250,000 average Texas homes". Sounds more impressive than saying that it provides enough juice to power less than one single aluminum smelter, doesn't it?