The electric cooperative needs to know the mean household usage of electricity by its non-commercial customers in kWh per day. They would like the estimate to have a maximum error of 0.12 kWh. A previous study found that for an average family the standard deviation is 1.2 kWh and the mean is 17.9 kWh per day. If they are using a 90% level of confidence, how large of a sample is required to estimate the mean usage of electricity? Round your answer up to the next integer.

A sample size of at least 271 is required.

Step-by-step explanation:

We have that to find our level, that is the subtraction of 1 by the confidence interval divided by 2. So:

Now, we have to find z in the Ztable as such z has a pvalue of .

So it is z with a pvalue of , so

Now, find the margin of error M as such

In which is the standard deviation of the population and n is the size of the sample.

Maxium error of 0.12.

How large of a sample is required to estimate the mean usage of electricity?

We need a sample size of at least n.

n is found when

So

Rounding up

A sample size of at least 271 is required.

c. (3,2,6) is the answer.