Sunday, February 3, 2008

What is Watt?

Watts are one of the measurements you will refer to in your electrical work. Most of us know the term from buying light bulbs (I know, the term should be lamps, but this isn’t an easy one to get away from) as in “Why do we have a shelf full of 60-watt bulbs when I need 100?” A watt is a unit of electrical power. It tells you how much electricity you’re consuming and being billed for by your utility company. This is why you have a meter outside your house recording your usage. A single watt is a minuscule way to measure power usage, so the following larger units of measure are used instead:
  • Kilowatt or kw (1 kw = 1,000 watts)
  • Megawatt (1 megawatt = 1,000 kw or 1 million watts) You’ve really got some usage problems if your electric bill indicates that you’re in the megawatt range. (Perhaps you have a refrigerated warehouse on your roof.)

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