Convert Watts to Kilowatts: Understanding Key Electricity Terms

Do you feel lost when looking at your monthly energy bill? Terms like kilowatts, or demand, and kilowatt-hours, or consumption, might feel like complex jargon. However, understanding terms like watt and kilowatt is a small first step to mastering your home's energy use and taking control of your energy costs. 

This article helps you navigate some basic electricity jargon you need to understand your electricity bill, and gives you a clearer understanding of just why your energy bill costs what it does.

What are watts and watt-hours?

Watts are simply a metric system unit of power. Electric power can be generated, moved around, and consumed and it can be described in watts. If you still have old incandescent light bulbs around, they might be rated 40, 60, or 100 watts. Those bulbs use 40, 60, or 100 watts of electric power to run. A home’s central AC unit can use 3,000-5,000 watts.

A watt-hour is the amount of energy equivalent to one watt generated, moved, or consumed in an hour. Turning on a one-watt lightbulb for one hour would use one watt-hour of electricity. Turning on two two-watt light bulbs for 30 minutes, or a 60-watt light bulb for one minute, would also use one watt-hour. If an oven runs at 4,000 watts for an hour, it’s using about 4,000 watt-hours.

Here’s what typical appliances use, according to one electric utility company and the cost of running them for one hour, given the national average electric rate of 18.83 cents per kilowatt-hour in February 2025.

How do you convert watts to kilowatts?

If you’re an American, you probably don’t use the metric system, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. So is converting watts to kilowatts. One kilowatt (kW) is 1,000 watts. 

To convert from watts to kilowatts, simply divide the number of watts by 1,000.

Watts / 1,000 = kilowatts

For example, if a solar array is made up of 20 panels with each panel generating 400 watts of power, its capacity is 8,000 watts or 8 kW.

To convert from kilowatts to watts, multiply the number of kilowatts by 1,000.

Kilowatts x 1,000 = watts

A central air conditioner might consume 3-5 kilowatts, or 3,000-5,000 watts.

After watts and kilowatts you can go to megawatts (1,000,000 watts) and gigawatts (1,000,000,000 watts).

How do you convert watt-hours to kilowatt-hours?

Converting watt-hours to kilowatt-hours uses the same process: Divide the number of watt-hours by 1,000.

Watt-hours / 1,000 = kilowatt-hours

To convert from kilowatt-hours to watt-hours, multiply the number of kilowatt-hours by 1,000.

Kilowatt-hours x 1,000 = watt-hours

Kilowatt-hours and your electric bill

When you look at your electric bill, you see your energy consumption over the billing period given in kilowatt-hours, or kWh. The average American home used 863 kWh each month in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This figure includes electricity homes draw from the grid. Solar homes, which consume at least some of the electricity their solar panels generate, may buy less from the grid than the total they use. Your consumption in kWh is multiplied by your electric rate to calculate how much you owe each month.

If you’re looking to reduce that amount, it’s important to think about the watts or kilowatts different systems or appliances use, often called a watt rating. It’s also important to think about the duration and frequency of how you use them. 

For instance, a coffee maker and a space heater both run on about one kW. You might use the coffeemaker a few minutes at a time, a few times a day — depending on your need for coffee. So the one kW capacity of the coffee maker may not add a full kWh to your monthly bill. If you run the space heater for two hours, a more likely scenario, it will add two kWhs to your bill in one shot.

HVAC systems use more than half of home’s annual energy consumption in the U.S, 52% in 2020 according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heaters and AC units are major energy hogs and run for long stretches of time, especially for, say, home heating in a Michigan January or the AC in Florida during the summer.

If you’re interested in ways you can reduce your energy consumption at home, and maybe save some money in the process, get a free solar quote from Palmetto today.

Watts and kilowatts FAQs

What’s the difference between a kilowatt and kilowatt-hour?

A kilowatt is a measurement of power. A kilowatt-hour is a measurement of energy equal to one kilowatt being generated, transferred, or consumed over an hour. If an appliance runs at 1,000 watts, or one kW, it can consume one kWh in an hour. If it runs for a half-hour, it will consume 0.5 kWh.

How are solar panel systems sized?

Solar panel systems are usually measured in kilowatts, which measures how much electricity they can produce at peak production.

There are a number of factors which go into finding the right size system for your home. In most cases, a new solar system should meet your home’s current energy consumption requirements, though there are reasons to make a system larger or smaller, too. The size can also be affected by design constraints, roof size, local regulation, available sunlight, and more.

How many watts in a kilowatt?

There are 1,000 watts in a kilowatt and 1,000 watt-hours in a kilowatt-hour. Divide any number of watts by 1,000 to get the same amount of power in kilowatts. Multiply kilowatts by 1,000 to get the same amount of power in watts.

Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only. Palmetto does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Please consult your own tax, legal, and accounting advisors.