Your power use - what it means and how it adds up

If you pull out a copy of your power bill you'll see a lot of numbers relating to meter readings, usage amounts, usage rates and the cost.

If you want to understand all of the components of your bill in detail, you should visit your electricity company's website but a couple of general things that apply to all power bills are worth noting:

• Usage (usually shown in kWh) – this shows your total electricity usage during the billing period (usually around 90 days).
• Your average usage per day – this is usually in the form of a bar chart that shows your average daily usage for the billing period and compares it to previous billing periods going back 18 months to two years, so you compare your rate of usage to the same time last year.
  
  The typical NSW home uses the most power per day during the winter due to heating.

Here is a table of typical power use in your home:

• Power is usually measured in watts – one watt burns one joule of energy per second.
• A kilowatt (kW) equals 1,000 watts.
• Electricity use is typically given in kilowatt hours (kWh). In one hour, a one kilowatt appliance uses one kWh of power.
• A megawatt (MW) is 1,000 kilowatts.