How does ka relate to watts

The unit of measurement for electrical power is the watt. Wattage represents the amount of work done or electricity consumed per unit time. One watt is defined as one joule per second. Wattage is the product of voltage and current. Wattage can be thought of like the power of water coming from a hose. The power of the water is a product of pressure and flow rate.

Voltage represents the electric potential of energy. It can be thought of similar to water pressure within a hose. One volt is defined as one joule per coulomb. A joule is the work done by one ampere of current passing through one Ohm of resistance for one second. Differences between real and apparent power, and thus watts and volt amps, arise because of inefficiencies in electrical transmission. The resulting inefficiency of electrical transmission can be measured and expressed as a ratio called the power factor.

The power factor is a ratio a number from 0 to 1 of real power and apparent power. In the case of a 1. In the case of a 0. Deploying systems that have higher power factors result in less electrical loss and can help improve your Power Usage Effectiveness PUE.

The resulting real power is kilowatts. When the metric system was adopted by the international scientific community, a watt, by virtue of it being a unit of work or energy over time, became equal to a joule per second. You can use either of the following equations to calculate power in watts, provided all quantities are expressed in in MKS meters, kilograms, seconds metric units. If you do your measurements on the CGS centimeters, grams, seconds system, force is expressed in dynes and work in ergs.

You must convert these to newtons and joules to get the result in watts. Here are the conversion factors:. Doing so allows you to express power as a function of either voltage and current or voltage and resistance. After making your measurements, you don't have to do the calculations yourself. You can use an online calculator. There is one such calculator in Resources. To get the result in watts, you must express voltage in volts, current in amperes and resistance on ohms.