CALCULATING THE COST OF

ELECTRICITY
Electricity costs money. We pay for it when we buy a battery and we pay the electricity board for the electricity
that we use from the mains. The electricity board measures the electrical energy that we use not in joules but in
units called KILOWATT-HOURS.

1 KWh = 1 Unit of electricity

First convert power from W to KW by dividing by 1000. Convert time to hours (h).
Then use this formula to calculate the total cost of electricity:

(cost of 1 unit = 10p)

One kilowatt hour (1 UNIT) = 1000 W x 3600 s

= 1000 x 3600
= 3 600 000 J

In Britain 1 unit of electricity costs about 10p (Rs.14). The cost if calculated in terms of JOULES will give big
numbers for the whole month so it is calculated using KW and h not seconds.

Since appliances are usually marked with the power at which they run we can work out how much energy they
will use in a certain time. We can do this using the formula:
Power = Energy/Time
which when rearranged becomes:

[Power in watts, time in seconds, energy in joules]

A normal house will use about 15 000 MJ of energy in a year. (1 MJ = 106 J)

By Shafaq Hafeez
shafaq@physics.com.pk