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Lesson 32 · The Hydro Bill
The unit the bill speaks
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The unit the bill speaks

Your hydro bill never mentions joules — the joule is too small a coin for a month of electricity. The bill's unit is the kilowatt-hour (kWh): what a 1000 W device spends in one hour of running. Energy is power times time — E=P tE = P\,t, read aloud: E equals P t — and if the power wears kilowatts and the time wears hours, EE lands in kilowatt-hours, exactly the coin the meter counts.

So every bill is a two-step: watts to kilowatts first (÷1000 — kilo means a thousand), THEN multiply by the hours, then by the rate in cents per kilowatt-hour. In Ontario that rate hovers around ten to fourteen cents. Skip the ÷1000 and your kettle appears to cost more than the house — the meter would like a word.

EPt

E=PtE = P t

  • EE= Energy (energy)
  • PP= Power (power)
  • tt= Time (time)
Electrical Energy (E = Pt) solver →

Ce=E peC_e = E \, p_e

  • CeC_e= Energy cost (money)
  • EE= Energy consumed (energy)
  • pep_e= Energy rate (cost per energy)
Energy Cost from a Utility Rate solver →