It’s super easy to convert kWh to kW. There’s a simple formula you can use which will help you understand your usage in kilowatts. This is useful to determine the size of battery or inverter you need for your solar power setup.
Below, we explain in detail why an adequate battery is important for your setup and how to figure out exactly what you need.
We also explain the kWh to kW formula and illustrate how to use it with an easy-to-understand example.
Once you’ve got the hang of electric equations, you’ll wonder why you were ever scared of them. Getting a handle on these basic concepts allows you to tackle more advanced formulae, like calculating your kWh per square foot or converting kWh to amps.
Let’s get cracking.
kWh To kW Calculator
Kilowatt Hours Vs Kilowatt: What’s The Difference?
Before we can do the conversion equation, it’s important that we understand why we’re doing it. This means understanding the difference between the two units and how they pertain to a solar power system user.
This empowers you to make the best decisions in terms of the different parts you choose for your solar power system if you’re new to the game, or it’ll help you make improvements to your existing system.
Optimizing your setup is a great way to save money in the long term. We’ll explain this in more detail later.
Kilowatt Hour
A kilowatt-hour is one kilowatt of power for one hour. In other words, one kilowatt of power is provided consistently for the period of an hour - with no power dips or surges.
The kWh is a common billing unit that’ll be used on your electric bills. This is because it’s easy for your energy provider to measure your usage in this way and bill you for it.
Kilowatt-hours measure absolute power usage, rather than power usage over time. This is what makes it a suitable unit to be used by electric companies. This unit also helps electric companies standardize your power usage.
To illustrate this, we’ve included two examples below.
A lightbulb only uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity after ten hours because it requires so little energy to power it. An oven, however, uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity in thirty minutes.
This standardization allows electric companies to bill you for your exact usage. In terms of solar power, it allows you to monitor your exact usage to optimize your setup.
Kilowatt
A kilowatt is a unit of energy. It carries quite a bit of significance in everyday life because it’s the base unit for measuring anything electric.
It’s linked to the kilowatt-hour as described above, as it’s the unit of energy measured over an hour to give you the kilowatt-hour value.
Kilowatts are based on watts and are used because appliances nowadays use large amounts of electricity to power themselves. A kilowatt is one thousand watts.
So, instead of saying an appliance uses 2000 watts to work, we can say it uses 2 kilowatts.
Why These Units Are Important To Solar Users
In terms of your solar power setup, monitoring your usage is always going to be important.
The power your setup harnesses from the sun on a daily basis needs to be stored somewhere. Generally, it’s stored in a battery inside your inverter.
The catch is this: your inverter can’t realistically go below 50% battery power. If this happens often, your battery will experience something called battery degradation.
What this means is that your battery will store less power over time. That means that although you might have paid for a battery with high energy storage capabilities, it’ll never be able to charge to 100% of that capability.
Over time, it’ll store less and less power, and eventually, it’ll give out.
This is why it’s so important to make sure that you buy a battery that stores way more power than your home needs. This way, you’ll never deplete your battery below 50% of its capacity and it won’t experience degradation.
Understanding your usage in kilowatts will help you manage how much power you’ll need for specific appliances. This is useful if your setup is small and you need to determine how many appliances you can plug in at once.
If your setup is intended to power your whole home, it’ll be useful to know your overall consumption in kilowatt-hours. You can either have a look for inverters that will work for you, or you’re welcome to contact us directly for some help in that department.
Our kWh per day calculator will be helpful here.
kWh To kW Calculator Conversion
We have good news! The kWh to kW conversion is super easy to do.
This means you don’t have to spend hours doing math before making your inverter selection.
The formula is as follows:
kW = kWh / Time
It’s important to note that the time element should be in hours. If you’re working with thirty minutes, for example, you input this value as 0.5 hours.
To find the kilowatt value, you can either take a look at the specific appliance you’re applying the calculation to, or you can add up all the appliances you’ll be powering with your inverter to determine the kilowatt hours.
It doesn’t stop here, though. This is just the first step on your solar journey. Be sure to check out our kW to amps calculator and familiarize yourself with how to convert kWh to kVA to work out the optimal storage setup for your system.
These calculations help you determine your power usage. This, in turn, helps you decide on solar setup components adequate for your usage level.
Conversion Example To Get You Started
We’ve done an example calculation to get you started below. This illustrates how easy the formula is to use, and we’ve done it using standard variable values for a lightbulb’s usage over two hours.
To personalize your equation, simply input the variable values that apply to your usage and appliances.
kW = kWh / time.
= 0,2 / 2
= 0,1 kW
This shows us that the lightbulbs energy usage in Watts is 100.
You can also make use of our solar load calculator to determine your needs.
You can find all of the solar & electrical calculators we have created in order to help you plan, size and install your own solar power system here.
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