Physicists, help me understand this:
If they're referring to _power_, the unit should be _KW_, right?
And if they're referring to _energy_ consumed (in some interval of time), then it should be _KW⋅h_ (not _KW/h_). Right?
(And if so: the quantity is meaningless unless you specify _the interval of time_. eg: _“400 KW·h on an average day”_. No? I mean, my smartphone also consumes 400 KW·h… if I use it for long enough!)
@tripu
KW/h means kw for each hour, it' s conventionally written that way, it doesn't say "average" but "at minimum"*, the time interval is a single hour, and I really hope your phone doesn't consume that much. :)
*I guess "minimum" means with little weight, like a single person.
What does it mean to consume a certain minimum of power per some _specific_ period of time?
If it's roughly the power needed to lift very little weight, an idle lift consumes even less than that, and the busiest of lifts sits idle at least some time (wouldn't that be the minimum? the power needed to keep the lights on?)
Also: how's that a minimum _per hour_? If it's the power needed when idling, wouldn't that measure be identical _per day_? Or _per year_? The time dimension is irrelevant here. It should be _W_, _horsepower_, or any other unit of _power_.
Analogy with a smartphone again: if the minimum power consumed by some phone is what it needs to stay idle with its screen off (maybe in “flight mode” too), _that would be it_: you wouldn't express that in _KW/h_ or in _mW/h_ — because that's the minimum also _per week_, or _per year_.
Again: a lift consumes _energy_. If you want to express how much energy it consumes per unit of time (eg, in one hour), you're measuring _power_. Watts (and Kilowatts, and horsepower) are a already units of power, and so “KW/h” doesn't make sense, afaict.
An analogy:
A person running a race covers distance, (ie, _length_; unit: metre). If you want to express how much distance it covers per unit of time (eg, in one hour), you're measuring _speed_. For that you would use use m/s, Km/h, knots, or some other unit of speed. But it would make no sense to say that someone runs at such-and-such “knots/h”, or that it runs such-and-such “m/s in an hour”.
@tripu
It's formula: total consumption/ hours = consumption for a single hour.
You want to know anything more you gotta pay me.