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kilowatt-hour

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kilowatt-hour

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Also known as kilowatthour, kilowatt hour, kW·h, kW h, kW·hr, kW hr, kWhr, kW-hr

A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a common billing unit for electrical energy supplied by electric utilities. Metric prefixes are used for multiples and submultiples of the basic unit, the watt-hour (3.6 kJ).

Key facts

Unit.units3
Imperial units
Unit.inunits3
≈
Unit.units4
English Engineering units (US only)
Unit.inunits4
≈
Unit.name
kilowatt-hour
Unit.image
Hydro quebec meter.JPG
Unit.caption
Residential electricity meter located in Canada
Unit.standard
Non-SI metric
Unit.quantity
Energy
Unit.symbol
kW⋅h
Unit.symbol2
kW h
Unit.units1
SI units
Unit.units2
CGS units

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
unit of energy
Named after
hour
Image
Wechselstromzähler Keiser & Schmidt.jpg
Show 5 more facts
conversion to SI unit
3600000
measured physical quantity
energy
unit symbol
кВт⋅ч
Wikidata SPARQL query equivalent
wd:Q182098 p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?source; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. ?item p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?target; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. BIND(?source / ?target as ?value)
conversion to standard unit
1000
Sources (1)

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Encyclopedic overview

11 sections
Contents
  • Definition
  • Unit representations
  • Electricity sales
  • Examples
  • Conversions
  • Distinction between kWh (energy) and kW (power)
  • Annualized power
  • Misuse of watts per hour{{anchor|Watt per hour}}
  • Other related energy units
  • See also
  • References

A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a common billing unit for electrical energy supplied by electric utilities. Metric prefixes are used for multiples and submultiples of the basic unit, the watt-hour (3.6 kJ).

==Definition== The kilowatt-hour is a composite unit of energy equal to one kilowatt (kW) multiplied by (i.e., sustained for) one hour. The International System of Units (SI) unit of energy is the joule (symbol J). Because a watt is by definition one joule per second, and because there are 3,600 seconds in an hour, one kWh equals 3,600 kilojoules or 3.6 MJ.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “kilowatt-hour” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.