Alan Evans Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 I dunno, I always thought it was because the k was just a number but that Watt was a proper name.Hence, kWh = kilo Watt hours, kVA = kilo Volt Amps.I am not an electrician nor an engineer like SmoothBore I hasten to add, so may be I misunderstood!But I have just checked and it is written that way on our mains electricity meters and on the motor plate I have just looked at.Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel OF Posted August 22, 2015 Author Share Posted August 22, 2015 (edited) i always understood it was kW. Lower case "k" capital "W"The personal pronoun "I" is meant to be a capital Edited August 22, 2015 by Joel OF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Evans Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 The personal pronoun "I" is meant to be a capital my lift arrived so no time to read through or fix before sending ...and the silly iPad / IFI text software chose not auto capitalise despite the return being pressed. Just like on this paragraph, and also on the paragraph following the one you pointed out. Occasionally consistent is not much use.As it invariably seems to catch one out when being a pedant, maybe it is an anti-pomposity "feature" of the system! Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbo7 Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 There you go, I am a sparky and I cant come up with a better explanation for the way I assumed it to be, I will get back to you on this one Sir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Evans Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 (edited) There you go, I am a sparky and I cant come up with a better explanation for the way I assumed it to be, I will get back to you on this one Sir. It doesn't seem to hold true for MW Megawatt or for any of the computer memory capacities Kb KB Mb MB GB…so maybe it is just a British Standards Institute thing.Mind you, the two letter acronym for that is BS, so who's to say! Alanp.s. I have just remembered that mW would be milli Watt and mA = milli Amp so that would be why the use of capital 'M' for Mega. Edited August 22, 2015 by Alan Evans remembered millivolts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gote Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Due to the variables in International Power Supplies, ... and trying to cope with the wide range of available Voltages and Megahertz ( frequency ), ... it's more consistent to reduce everything to Watts, or Kilowatts.In the end, you aren't billed for "Volts" or "Amps", ... for the purpose of billing, the universal standard of measure, is Kilowatt Hours.Therefore, Electrical Engineering "standards" are routinely referenced in Kilowatts ( Kw ).That way, you know everyone is "on the same page". .Smooth bore I agree that it is confusing when people use Amps when they should be using kW. However, wiring is designed to the maximum load in Amperes sice the design is intended to curb voltage loss and prevent overheating. As I said, My bills are X SEK (Swedish crowns) per Ampere plus Y SEK per kWh. I pay more if my main fuzes are 25A than if they are 20A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbo7 Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Sorry for taking so long. Alan you are correct Sir, Electrical Principles for the Electrical Trades J.R.Jenneson 2nd Edition has it as kWh, also all answers relating to kiloWatts has it as kW. Thank you for your patience Alan.Brendan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Evans Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Sorry for taking so long. Alan you are correct Sir, Electrical Principles for the Electrical Trades J.R.Jenneson 2nd Edition has it as kWh, also all answers relating to kiloWatts has it as kW. Thank you for your patience Alan.BrendanThank you for taking the trouble to look it up!We all know what SmoothBore meant, and I was in total agreement with his point.I was just amused given the context of his exhortation that we should use the "standard" measure in the interests of clarity, that he then got the "standard" acronym wrong!In the same way Joel was amused by my typo when I was picking somebody else up on theirs!All ends happily! Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 But this still does not determine the kWh for a gerbil in a wheel (see page 1) .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Evans Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 But this still does not determine the kWh for a gerbil in a wheel (see page 1) ....gWh? gerbil Wheel hoursGwh? Gerbil wheel hoursAs a professional electrician I see you were easily able to neatly avoid the obvious beginners mistake of Gwh Giga wheel hours! Alan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 in my 30+ years as an electrician, I have noticed the term "Giga" may not be used in relation to any gerbil, no matter how much one may exceed the standard size for said rodent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianinsa Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Steve, are you sure the 'Giga' does not refer to the 'wheel' in said Gwh as opposed to the rodent? Not being an electrician does not help when I read about these vast electrical volumes/capacities! Sort of 1 Gwh must 'push' a Brazilian Amps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quarry Dog Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 A billion gerbils is a scary thought to me for some reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJergensen Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 It's kW in the International System of Units, but people get sloppy on the capitalization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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