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The World’s Largest Wind Turbine Has Been Switched On
(www.iflscience.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
These types of statements always trip me up. Why one year? If it's producing that amount of energy in that same year, shouldn't it just be "...power 36,000 households of three people."?
They're leaving out an important part of the claim.
I can set up some piezoelectric things in my office chair such that when I sit my fat ass down it generates a small electrical charge. I can say that my ass can generate enough electricity to power a million homes for 10 years, assuming I don't tell you how long it takes to generate that power, which would be on the order of decades, if not centuries, if not longer.
I'd wager someone saw the average energy output for the expected service lifetime of the turbine, then was like, "How much energy does one 3-person household use?" and started playing with Excel until they got a good mix of time and # of households for the press release.
Generally people compare the energy produced within the same period of time. There's no need to add additional context since it's pretty standard to expect that.