How Much is a Kilowatt?

How Does It Work

The meter you studied will help answer the question that started it all, “How much is a kilowatt?” Of course, there are many factors (time of day, season, etc.) that have to be considered to finally answer that but you do have to start with how many kilowatts are being used. The older style meters (analog) use a large, spinning, horizontal disk connected to smaller dials. It’s built in such a way that the disk spins faster as more electricity is pulled through the meter. As a result the smaller dials move faster as electrical energy consumption increases in the home. Digital meters are generally more precise and offer several options to both homeowners and power companies. They do, however, have temperature-related issues and sensitivity. In both cases, the numbers show how many kilowatt-hours have been used over a period of time.

Scottish scientist and steam-engine wizard, James Watt (1736–1819), introduced the term horsepower to the world. A “Watt” describes the power output needed to accomplish a task or to do work. The term “kilowatt-hour” (kWh or 1000 watts/hour) is used by electric companies to measure how much electrical “power” (electricity) you use at home each month. It’s a complicated calculation and that number is your monthly electric bill.

One kWh represents the amount of energy needed by a 1000-Watt device (such as a clothes iron or a microwave oven) to operate continuously for one hour. The US Energy Information Administration reports that, on average, a kilowatt-hour costs about $.13 USD across the country.

Take It Further

People are sometimes clueless that electricity is not free and frequently demonstrate that fact by leaving doors open, lights on, and devices operating when not needed or no one is around. The electric meter doesn’t care and just keeps counting the kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electric power that pass through it. Monthly, it sends the amount used to the electric company where a dollar value is applied and you receive an electric bill.

It makes sense that a 100-watt bulb uses 100 watts of electricity. A desktop computer uses about 65 watts and a central air conditioner uses about 3,500 watts. Since all of the watts add up quickly, the term kilowatt is used to represent 1000 watts. To understand how much energy you’re using you also have to consider how long you run your appliances. When you use 1000 watts for an hour, that’s a kilowatt-hour. The key is to reduce the number of kilowatt hours you use each month in order to save money as well as natural resources.

How do you get a reduction? You can turn off lights and appliances that are not needed, do laundry in cold water instead of hot water (for electric water heaters), raise the thermostat temperature setting in the summer and lower it in winter, use a lower heat setting on a clothes dryer, purchase energy-saving appliances when possible, and use LED or CFL light bulbs instead of incandescent. You almost always get greater savings from simple conservation and smart usage of your electrical energy than from any other method.

Safety Information

It goes without saying that you’re involved with electricity here. Working around a meter and possibly an adjacent breaker box means there’s a whole lot more  power than what’s coming out of a wall outlet. That means a whole lot more caution is needed and touching unknown equipment or wires can be a very dangerous thing to do.