English Across the Curriculum
Electricity
How Electricity is Measured
Electricity is measured in watts, named after James Watt who invented the steam engine. It would take about 750 watts to equal one horsepower.
A kilowatt-hour is the energy of 1,000 watts that work for one hour. If, for example, you use a 100-watt light bulb for 10 hours you have used 1 kilowatt of electricity.
Steam engines were used for the first railway lines
Image: David Lloyd George Leaves Tan-y-Bwlch Station, Gwynedd by Peter Trimming, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons
An electricity meter measures how much energy you have used
Image: Zomettapuach, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons
