ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION AND HOW THE CHARGE IS CALCULATED

For you to practice Energy saving in the really sense of it, one should understand how electricity is charge.This is what I try to simplify here.

When you buy Petrol or diesel the charge is per litre but when you use Electricity the charge is in watt, one thousand watt for one hours (Kilowatt-hour) is one unit of electricity.

Watt is the unit of power and is defined as the energy consumption rate of one joule per second. That is the rate at which electrical energy is used/consumed and it known as the wattage of that appliance. When you use 1000 watts for 1 hour that is what is known as kilowatt-hour (KWH). The kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the standard unit of measurement for electricity and this is 1,000 watts of electricity being used for one hour. 

HOW TO CALCULATE THE ELECTRICITY USAGE OF APPLIANCES.

To calculate how much your appliance costs to run for an hour, look for its wattage on the box or in the instruction manual and multiply this by the number of hours you used each day. For example, a 1,000-watt air conditioner running for one hour consumes 1 kWh. By comparison, a 60-watt light bulb running for an hour uses 0.06 kWh (60 watts divided by 1,000).

To find how much the appliance consumes, we take the wattage of that appliance, multiply by the hours in use, divide by 1000 and multiply by price per KWh. The price per KWH for residential (R2) customers charge by Electricity Distribution companies in Nigeria is between ₦22.00 and ₦27.00

Cost of Electricity = Wattage × hours used ÷ 1000 × price per KWh

For example, let’s say you put on 60-watt bulb for one month (30 days). If we put on our bulb from 8:00pm to 6:00am that will be 10 hours. (10hours X 30days =300). Assuming we are using the lowest charge for 1 unit of electricity for residential customers (R2) according to Electricity Distribution Companies in Nigeria which is ₦22.00 for 1KWh.

Therefore, Cost of running the bulb for 1 month = 60watt × 300 ÷ 1000 × ₦22.00 = ₦450.00

There are instances where the appliance rating is in amperes (amps or A) instead of watts, then we just multiply the amperes times the voltage in order to get the watts, the voltage used in Nigeria is 240 volts. For example: If an appliance is rated 1.25amps, then it will be;

1.25 amps × 240 volts = 300 watts.  The appliance is rated 300watts.

 Okechukwu Paul Okeke, +2348033438490  ,