the density of holes with energy $E<kT$ (compare with the rule above).
where we used $\int_0^\infty \sqrt{x}e^{-x}dx=\sqrt{\pi}/2$. Note that $N_V$ represents the density of holes with energy $E<kT$ (compare with the rule above).
??? question "how large is $N_V$ at room temperature? (hard question)"
If $kT \sim 1\textrm{eV}$ (the typical energy size of a band), then electrons in the whole band may be excited and $N_V \sim 1$ per unit cell. On the other hand, $N_V \sim T^{3/2}$ Therefore $N_V \sim (kT/1 \textrm{eV})^{3/2}\sim 1\%$.