Cocina

Electricity and energy management

The difference between demand (KW) and consumption (KWH) is vital to your choices in
reducing your energy costs. A simple way to seethe difference between demand and
consumption is by considering two examples.
Demand           =    KW
        Consumption   =    KWH

LIGHTING EXAMPLE: One100-watt light bulb burning for 10 hours consumes 1,000 watt-hours
or 1 kWh. The entire time it is on, it requires or "demands" 100 watts or 0.1 kW from the utility.
That meansthe utility must have that 0.1 kW ready whenever the customer turns the lamp on.Similarly, ten 100-watt light bulbs burning for 1 hour consume 1,000 watt-hours or 1 kWh.Note that in both
examples, the consumption is 1 kWh, however, look how differently the second situation impacts the utility
from a demand perspective. The serving utilitymust now be prepared to provide ten times as much 'capacity'
in response to the "demand" of the 10 light bulbs operating all at once.If both of these customers are billedfor their consumption only, both will get the same bill for 1 kWh of energy.
And that is the way most residential customers are billed. But the requirement for the utilityto meet this energy
requirement is very different. In the second case, the utility has to have 10 times more generating 'capacity' to
provide the second customer's briefhigh demand for power compared to the first case. |
Commercial and industrial customers are often billed for their hourly consumption patterns and their peak demand
 forenergy. These customers often have special meters that measure both, unlike residential meters that just
record total consumption in a time period, usually one month.