Update: I am actually searching for really simple, intuitive ways to explain it. I have a background in engineering, but am struggling to explain why we “pay for kwh”, and not kw (on our electricity bill) to someone who doesn’t. I have tried in many ways but maybe I’m not giving the right examples or making the right comparisons. I am really searchig for a way to ELI5.
In: 24
kW is instantaneous power. How much work you are doing right now.
kWh is energy, how much energy you burned over a time period. Could kind of be considered the average power over an hour. Using 1kW for an hour constantly uses the same energy as using 2kW for only 30 mins.
You can think of riding a bike. How hard you pedal is the power, it’s kW (though in reality good luck pedalling at 1kW for any extended period!). By the end of the cycle the energy you burned can be measured in kWh. Pedalling at 1kW for an hour burns more energy than pedalling at 0.5kW for an hour.
Also worth mentioning that energy is power X time. You literally multiply the kW by how many hours to get the energy (though usually you’d measure in Joules, which uses seconds not hours).
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