the.com/kilowatt hour
Energy's receipt: one kilowatt spent for one patient hour, that's it.
means A unit of energy equal to using 1,000 watts of power continuously for one hour — it's what your utility meter counts and your electric bill charges you for.
from A straightforward compound built from the watt, named after James Watt, the Scottish engineer whose steam engine improvements made him the obvious namesake when scientists needed a unit of power in the late 1800s. 'Kilo-' simply borrows the Greek-derived metric prefix for a thousand. Tack on 'hour' for the time dimension, and you get a unit purpose-built for the electrical age — coined not for poetry but because power companies needed a billable quantity once household electricity use took off in the early 20th century.
- not power
- measures energy used, not speed of use
- real example
- ten 100 watt bulbs burning for one hour
- average home
- US household burns about 30 per day
- price tag
- roughly 15 cents buys you one, in US