So although the units uses 1000 watts every second, it does not mean that it uses 1000 watts per second, because it uses 1000 watts for any time period: every second, every microsecond, every millisecond, every hour, every week, every month, every year, etc., because it never changes.
And furthermore you guys must have the most generous electric providers in the country because electricity here is $.35/kWh and going up again in January!
That sounds like a good habit to me.I would like to preface this by saying; thank you for helping me understand electricity better. I have a bad habit of needing to understand something and not just have surface knowledge.
You are still trying to mix up the units. As I previously noted, watts already has time in its definition (Joules per second) so to add time again would be redundant and actually be incorrect. Thus 100W per second technically means that the power is changing by 100W (either up or down) each second. A 100W lightbulb uses 100W for every second, minute, hour, or millennium that it is on. Certainly if it's on for one hour then it uses 100Wh of energy (not power). So to say it uses 100 watts for each hour its on is correct but conveys redundant (no new) information.I guess i'm stuck on conventional rates. With a conventional rate there is always a 'per': my car goes 60 miles per hour. Without the 'per hour' the 60 miles becomes meaningless. But what i understand you saying is that with electricity the 1000 watt has meaning outside of a per hour or per time definition.
To go back to the lightbulb explanation that MikeMI used. He went directly from the lightbulb uses 100 watts to the lightbulb uses 800Wh in 8 hours. That sounds like a per should be in there. The lightbulb uses 100 watts per hour.
Can i assume that everything that has a wattage would use that amount of watts in one hour? So my tv that uses 300 watts, if i watched tv for 1 hour it has used 300Wh. Or is that an incorrect way of thinking?
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Here in Canada we make cheap electricity with waterfalls and nuclear energy.
I would like to preface this by saying; thank you
for helping me understand electricity better. I have a bad habit of needing to understand something
and not just have surface knowledge.
Ummm...MrAI this may have blown my mind:
I guess i'm stuck on conventional rates. With a conventional rate there is always a 'per': my car
goes 60 miles per hour. Without the 'per hour' the 60 miles becomes meaningless. But what i
understand you saying is that with electricity the 1000 watt has meaning outside of a per hour or per
time definition.
To go back to the lightbulb explanation that MikeMI used. He went directly from the lightbulb uses
100 watts to the lightbulb uses 800Wh in 8 hours. That sounds like a per should be in there. The
lightbulb uses 100 watts per hour.
Can i assume that everything that has a wattage would use that amount of watts in one hour? So my tv
that uses 300 watts, if i watched tv for 1 hour it has used 300Wh. Or is that an incorrect way of
thinking?
And furthermore you guys must have the most generous electric providers in the country because
electricity here is $.35/kWh and going up again in January!
So when we have 1000 watts that means we are using energy at the rate of 1000 Joules per second, and since the Joule is a measure of energy we can also think of it as: W=energy/time
In other words, the Watt is a measure of energy per unit time.
Following this, if the appliance is left on for various times we can make a little table:
1000 watts left on for 1 hour means we've used 1 kwh
1000 watts left on for 2 hours means we've used 2 kwh
1000 watts left on for 5 hours means we've used 5 kwh.
So you can see how simple this is. Watts itself is not energy, it is the energy per unit time.
They are the same rate but for convenience sake we talk in terms of miles per hour since thats how most people think in terms of cars and speed.
What do you think?
Okay. I think I have it now. So Watt is a rate and not an amount. Similar to speed. By saying I'm going 60 miles per hour, I know only how fast I'm going not how much distance i've traveled. Not until I say 60 miles per hour for 2 hours do i have an amount. So Watts is a rate and not until I say 60 watts for 2 hours do i have an amount of energy i've used. So any time i see a wattage rating i can interpret that as merely a rate but then would have to think about how much time that item would actually be on. The fridge thing makes sense know. I didn't realize how little the fridge actually 'ran'.
So tell me if I have this one right: It seems like the energy company bills me for (kWh) kilo watt hours for the sake of keeping everyone on the same page. Because watt's are a rate they could potentially charge me for kilo watt days (kWd) or mega watt weeks (mWw). But similar to speed we could just as correctly say that my car goes 88 feet per second as we could say that it goes 60 miles per hour. They are the same rate but for convenience sake we talk in terms of miles per hour since thats how most people think in terms of cars and speed.
What do you think?
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