Blog
06 17, 2021
{{ content.title }}
{{ content.description }}
To understand what’s driving your energy use, there are a couple of key terms every facilities manager needs to understand. The difference between kilowatts (kW) and kilowatt-hours (kWh) is one of the essentials, but many of the facilities teams that we speak with aren’t able to determine the difference between them.
Here’s why the difference between kW and kWh is essential to managing your energy usage
Organizations tend to think they’re billed exclusively for how many kWh we use, but more than 30% of an electricity bill for commercial and industrial energy users is dictated by your kW energy usage. (We explain this more later in the post.) Knowing the difference between your kW and kWh usage can help you save significantly on your next utility bill or energy bill.
So here’s a dead-simple explanation of the difference between a kW and a kWh as it relates to electricity consumption.
Quick definitions: kW vs. kWh
So what is kWh and what is kW in regards to energy consumption? Our energy bill experts are here to explain it to you. In the world of energy management, the kW is often referred to as “demand” and the kWh as “usage” or “consumption.”
The car analogy
Consider two cars. The first car is a Ferrari driven by a speed demon. The second is a 20-year-old Volkswagen Golf driven by someone who just wants to get from A to B in one piece.
| Car | Speed range / demand | Time | Distance covered / usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ferrari | 80 – 140 mph | 7 hours | 770 miles |
| Volkswagen Golf | 45 – 60 mph | 7 hours | 367.5 miles |
The kilowatt (kW) = speed (mph)
Both cars go on a 7-hour drive. Once it gets on the highway, the Ferrari’s speed ranges from 80 to 140 mph. That’s the “demand” the driver’s putting on her car. If it were a building, we’d say it were using between 80 and 140 kW at any given moment.
Once the Golf gets on the highway, it tops out at 60mph and goes as slow as 45 mph. If it were a building, we’d say it has a maximum demand, or “peak demand,” of 60 kW, and a minimum demand, or “baseline,” of 45 kW.
The kilowatt, then, is a measure of energy use at a given moment not over time. When we speak about the amount of total energy a building requires to operate – it’s electrical “load” – we speak in kilowatts (e.g., a building’s load ranges from 250 kW to 800 kW of electricity usage).
The kilowatt-hour (kWh) = distance travelled (mi)
Even though both cars were driving for the same number of hours (the “h” in kWh), the amount of distance they covered was drastically different. The Ferrari went nearly 1,000 miles on its journey, versus the Golf’s 420 miles.
If you think of distance covered as usage (that’s kWh), you can see how two buildings can operate for the same amount of time but use drastically different kWh. In this example, the Ferrari “building” used 980 kWh over the same period of time that the Golf “building” used 420 kWh.
So the kilowatt-hour is, in essence, a measure of total energy you use over a specific period of time, not at a given moment. When we speak about the amount of energy a building used over a month, we speak in kilowatt-hour terms (e.g., a building used 20,000 kWh more in July than it did in June).
Conclusion
To sum it up, the kilowatt is a building’s demand, or how much energy it’s using at a given moment. The kilowatt-hour is a building’s energy consumption, or how much energy it’s using over a given period of time.
Determining the difference between kW and kWh usage is essential, but so is understanding how they’re treated differently on your electricity bill. To learn more about how you can reduce your energy bills by more strategically planning your kW and kWh usage, contact our team today.
