What is a kilowatt hour?

Your main question is undoubtedly, how much does a kilowatt hour cost? Before we calculate the cost of a kilowatt hour we first have to measure exactly what makes up a KWh.

Watts

The rate of electrical use per second that can succesfully lift a 1 kilogram object up 10 centimeters would be one watt. For example:

• A 60-watt light bulb uses 60 watts and can be replaced with a 1-watt LEDison lamp and do the same job.
• A typical desktop computer uses between 80 - 250 watts and the monitor uses about 80 watts.
• Central Heating and air conditioning uses about 5000 watts.

If your business or home appliances and machines lists amps instead of watts, then you will need to multiply the amps times the voltage to get the watts. For example:

5.5 amps   x   300 volts   =   1650 watts

 

Watt-hours

To calculate how much energy you use you need to have an estimate of about how long you run different appliances and machines. When you use a 1-watt appliance for one hour, that is called a watt-hour or Wh . For example:

• A 60-watt light bulb on for an hour is 60 watt-hours (60 Wh)
• One 60-watt light bulb on for five hours is 300 Wh
• Five 60-watt light bulbs on for an hour is 300 Wh
  
  

Kilowatt-hours

1,000 watt-hours is measured as a kilowatt-hour (kWh). For example.

• A 60-watt light bulb on for an hour, is 0.06 kWh (60/1000)
• A 60-watt light bulb on for ten hours is .6 kWh (1 bulbs x 60W x 10h= 600Wh = .6 kWh)
• Ten 60-watt light bulbs on for an hour, is .6 kWh (10 bulbs x 60W x 1h= 600Wh = .6 kWh)
• Ten 100-watt light bulbs on for an hour, is 1 kWh
• Ten 100-watt light bulbs on for 1/2 an hour, is 0.5 kWh
• Running a 5000-watt air conditioner for an hour is 5 kWh.

 

Their is a difference that can be easily forgotten or overlooked. Make a point to remember that kilowatts and kilowatt-hours are two very different things. The first is the rate of energy at any moment. The second is the amount of energy used. For instance, an air-conditioner doesn't use 5,000 watts in an hour, it uses 5,000 watt-hours in an hour.

More online How much does electricity cost? Texas is ranked the 13th highest priced state for electricity rates..

Please remember to look for "hours" . We need to know this otherwise we would not know what period of time is being referred to. Any reference that leaves this information out should be understood as per hour.