Table of Contents
Why is electricity sold in kWh?
kWh stands for kilowatt-hour. A kWh is a measure of energy (not power). If your solar panels (for example) continuously output 1 kW of power for a whole 60 minutes, you will have produced 1 kWh of energy. e.g. “My solar system produced 4 kWh of electricity today!”
What’s the difference between kWh and joules?
One kilowatt-hour is equivalent to the energy of 1,000 joules used for 3,600 seconds or 3.6 million Joules. In equation form: 1 kWh = 3.6 million J. So if your building uses 5000 kWh each day, your building is consuming the same amount of energy that would be required to lift 18 billion cans of soda per day.
What units do most electric companies bill in?
Kilowatt hours (kWh) are the units in which electrical power usage is primarily measured — they are what you see on your electricity bill. The reason that this unit is used to measure your usage rather than kilowatts on their own is because kWh is a measurement of absolute power consumed over time.
What is the relation between 1 kWh and joule?
Relation between kilowatt hour and Joule. If energy is consumed at the rate of 1 kilojoule / second at the rate of 1 kilowatt and this continues for 1 hour, then the total energy consumed is called one kilowatt hour. = 3.6 × 10⁶ J.
How does the power company know how much power?
The utility company charges you for the power you use based on the monthly readings of an electric meter that measures the current passing through the service entrance into your electrical service panel.
Are Joules and Watts the same thing?
Watts are defined as 1 Watt = 1 Joule per second (1W = 1 J/s) which means that 1 kW = 1000 J/s. A Watt is the amount of energy (in Joules) that an electrical device (such as a light) is burning per second that it’s running.
Why don’t people talk about energy in joules?
The unit of energy is the “Joule” – a Watt is just a flow of one Joule per second. The other popular unit of power is the “horsepower”. The conversion is that one horsepower = 756 Watts. A 100-HP car would be able to turn a 75,600 – Watt electrical generator, or 75.6 kilowatts. So anybody who does talk about energy, rarely speaks in Joules.
What is the difference between Kilo watt hours and mega joules?
Hours gives us enough granularity when working with household energy consumption. There is no really good reason other than tradition, and I think Mega Joules sounds much cooler than kilo Watt hours. This time of year I get about 20 Mega Joules per mile (MJ/mile) in my electric vehicle.
What is a megajoule of energy?
Megajoule is a unit of energy typically represented by the symbol “MJ”. The prefix “mega” infers one million and megajoule equals 1,000,000 joules, an SI unit of energy with the plural “megajoules”. What is a megajoule and why does it matter when I buy a gas heater? What size gas heater should I buy?
Can I use gigajoules for my energy consumption?
You can use gigajoules if you want! It just should be not too small a unit, so that practical numbers can accompany it. First, the unit is “kilowatt-hour”, the energy used when a 1000 W appliance is run for an hour. This corresponds to 3600000 Watt-seconds, which is the same as 3600000 J.