• Physics 1 Home
• GHS Physics Website
• GHS Home

Webquest:  Electric Power & Your Electric Bill

1. What is power?
2. What unit is power measured in?  How is that unit defined?
3. What equations are used to calculate power?  Try at least five of the check your understanding questions at the bottom of the page.  Make sure you understand how to get the correct answer.
   
4. How does the electric company calculate your bill?
5. How much power is used by the appliances you use every day?
1. Create a table with six rows and five columns.  Label the top of the columns, "Appliance", "Time Used", "Wattage", "KW-hr", "Daily Cost", "Annual Cost". 
   
2. In the first column, make a list of appliances you use every day  (at least five).
   
3. In the second column, estimate the amount of time you use each appliance.
4. In the third column, record the wattage of the device (get an estimate from the web site or read it from the appliance rating tag.)
   
5. In the third column, calculate the kW-hr for each appliance. Follow the example on this page.
   
6. What is the average cost per kW-hr of electricity in Virginia?  Use Figure 4. U.S. Electric Industry Residential Average Retail Price of Electricity by State, 2003 (Cents per kWh) on this page to find out.
1. In the fourth column of your table, calculate the cost of operating your appliances on an average day.  Explain how you did this in equations or words.
7. In the fifth column, calculate the cost of operating your appliance each year.  Remember, there are 365 days in one year!  Explain how you did this in equations or words.