North Shore Home Services Association » kilowatt hour http://northshorehomeservices.org/members A benevolent organization of respected business leaders serving Chicago's North Shore. Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:02:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Understanding Your Electric Costs (part 1) http://northshorehomeservices.org/members/understanding-your-electric-costs-part-1 http://northshorehomeservices.org/members/understanding-your-electric-costs-part-1#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:39:50 +0000 Managing Director http://northshorehomeservices.org/members/?p=617 light by gábor suhajda

Funniest joke about electricity

Question: How much does it cost to operate a light bulb?

Answer: That depends on how many teenagers live in the house!

What is a kilowatt hour?

Basically electricity is billed in 1,000 watt-hour increments, or kilowatt-hours, or KWH. For example, a 1-watt light bulb burning for 1 hour equals 1 watt-hour or 1WH (1 watt times 1 hour).

A common 100-watt light bulb (typical “A” type lamp) burning for 10 hours = 1,000 watt-hours or 1KWH (100 watts X 10 hours).

Therefore, a 100-watt light bulb burning for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year = 873,600 WH or 873.6KWH

The cost for electricity, at my house anyway, for metering, distribution, environmental, transmission, instrument funding and about a half dozen other line items listed on my bill that I don’t understand (but I’m sure I need) is about 12¢ for every kilowatt hour.

At 12¢/KWH x 873.6KWH of usage, that light bulb costs about $104.84 per year to operate.

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