what is a kwh

A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is a unit of energy used to measure energy consumption or generation. It is a way to measure how much energy you’re using, and it is not the number of kilowatts you’re using in an hour, even though that seems to make sense. A kilowatt is a measure of power, while a kilowatt-hour is a measure of energy. Power is the rate at which something uses energy, and energy is the capacity to do work. On your energy bill, the kWh measures the amount of energy that an appliance or device needs to run for one hour. For example, if you turned on a 100-watt bulb, it would take 10 hours to use one kilowatt-hour of energy. Kilowatt-hours are a common billing unit for electrical energy supplied by electric utilities.