But if you’re consulting withsolar companiesabout installing panels on your roof, you’ll have to start.
And to do that, you better know the jargon.
Terms like kilowatt, megawatt, kilowatt-hour and more are important when you’reshopping for a solar panel system.
If you’re intimidated by the lingo, don’t fret.
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What are watts, kilowatts, megawatts and gigawatts?
When you want to understand energy terminology, you have to start with the most basic unit.
A watt is a unit of power.
It measures the rate at which energy is generated or consumed.
Edie teaches a course on clean energy in the electric grid.
Kilowatts and megawatts are simply multiples of watts, Edie said.
One kilowatt equals 1,000 watts, and one megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts or 1 million watts.
Converting between these units is as simple as multiplying or dividing the given metric by 1,000.
Multiply by 1,000 again to get kilowatts and again to get watts.
1 gigawatt = 1,000 megawatts = 1,000,000 kilowatts = 1,000,000,000 watts
How big are gigawatts?
Gigawatts(and megawatts, really) are only relevant on the scale of the grid.
When people talk about states or countries transitioning to green energy, they’re talking about gigawatts.
When we’re talking about your home, we’re talking kilowatts.
What are kilowatt-hours?
Kilowatt-hours, meanwhile, measure energy rather than power.
The distinction can be hard to visualize, Edie said.
Edie uses the analogy of a water pump.
The amount of water pumped depends on how long the pump is operating.
In terms of energy, a solar panel might have a rating of 500 watts.
That means in an hour, it would generate 500 watt-hours of energy – or half of a kilowatt-hour.
If it operates for 2 hours, that’s one kilowatt-hour of energy produced.
This knowledge empowers you to make an informed decision when comparing solar panels.
Similarly, homeowners with electric heaterssee similar spikes in the winter due to the cold weather.
Many household appliancesprovide power ratings (in watts) on their labels or user manuals.
This calculation lets you identify the devices that contribute the most to your overall energy usage.
TheUS Department of Energyoffers an online calculator for this purpose.
Find how many kilowatt-hours you use monthly and divide that by the number of days.
That will give you your average daily usage.
You’ll have the power rating you need for your solar panels to keep up with your energy needs.
And to navigate both of those decisions, you’ll need a working knowledge of kilowatts and kilowatt-hours.
It is a joule.
Those passages have now been rendered appropriately as paraphrases.
