In recent years, with environmental pollution and the depletion of fossil energy issues are increasingly being emphasized, some of the green energy industry development is gradually on track, and one of the more mature is solar power. Its industry is developing rapidly, and in the decades of time many times to update the development of technology, not only can solar power in the industrial and commercial areas, for home use, but also launched a home solar panel system and a series of supporting parts. As more and more people choose to learn about and purchase solar panel systems, the electrical knowledge about the system is being learned by more and more people. In this article, we will introduce you to two units of measurement for physical quantities: kilowatts (KW) and kilowatt-hours (KWh), and how to convert between the two.
Before learning how to convert between the two, we need to learn the following units of measurement of physical quantities.
1. What is a kilowatt (KW)?
A kilowatt is a unit of power. It is often used to describe how much energy an electrical system needs to do its job. The higher the kW value, the more energy is used by the electrical system and the lower the kW value, the less energy is used by the electrical system in the same amount of time.
The kilowatt, as a unit of power, is measured somewhere between a watt and a megawatt, which determines that it is the primary unit of power generated within a solar panel system. Therefore, an understanding of the kilowatt is necessary for anyone wishing to understand solar panel systems.
2. What is a kilowatt hour (KWh)?
The kilowatt hour is a unit of energy. Its value is the amount of energy consumed by an electrical system to run a particular job. The larger the value of kWh, the more energy consumed by the appliance, and conversely, the smaller the value of kWh, the less energy consumed by the appliance.
As a unit of measurement of energy, the kWh is the main unit of measurement of energy consumption in households, including the daily energy provided by solar panel systems and the energy consumed by household appliances in their daily operation, and this measurement is able to achieve a large degree of uniformity in the installation and use of electrical systems, as well as in the pricing of various types of energy sales.
3. How do I convert from kilowatts (KW) to kilowatt-hours (KWh)?
After learning the definitions of kW and kWh separately, we can start learning about the calculation of the conversion from kW to kWh. First of all, we need to know that kW and kWh do not belong to the same unit of measurement of physical quantities, so in order to realize the conversion between them, we need to introduce an intermediate physical quantity, time (T). In this way, we can learn the conversion formula between the two. The specific formula is as follows:
E (KWh) = P (KW) x T (h)
The above formula will be explained in detail below:
E in the above formula refers to the energy consumed by an appliance over a period of time, P refers to the operating power of the appliance, and T refers to the operating time of the appliance, i.e.:
kWh = kilowatt x hour
In order for you to better understand and grasp the above formula, the following will be an example of the design of solar panels, using the above formula for calculation: if your total power of household appliances is 2.2KW, the effective working hours per day is 8h, in order to design the size of the solar panel system you need, you need to calculate the daily electricity consumption of the family: 2.2KW × 8h = 17.6KWh.
