electrician Hillingdon Need help, fixing wiring or lighting? Do not hesitate to give us a call! Qualified electricians, at your service! =>
Some Wikipedia facts
The electric power industry is the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electric power to the general public. The electrical industry started with introduction of electric lighting in 1882. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, growing economic and safety concerns lead to the regulation of the industry. Once an expensive novelty limited to the most densely populated areas, reliable and economical electric power has become a requirement for normal operation of all elements of developed economies.
By the middle of the 20th century, electric power was seen as a "natural monopoly", only efficient if a restricted number of organizations participated in the market; in some areas, vertically-integrated companies provides all stages from generation to retail, and only governmental supervision regulated the rate of return and cost structure.
Since the 1990s, many regions have opened up the generation and distribution of electric power to provide a more competitive electricity market. While such markets can be abusively manipulated with consequent adverse price and reliability impact to consumers, generally competitive production of electrical energy leads to worthwhile improvements in efficiency. However, transmission and distribution are harder problems since returns on investment are not as easy to find.
Źródło: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_industry
Historical facts
Although electricity had been known to be produced as a result of the chemical reactions that take place in an electrolytic cell since Alessandro Volta developed the voltaic pile in 1800, its production by this means was, and still is, expensive. In 1831, Michael Faraday devised a machine that generated electricity from rotary motion, but it took almost 50 years for the technology to reach a commercially viable stage. In 1878, in the US, Thomas Edison developed and sold a commercially viable replacement for gas lighting and heating using locally generated and distributed direct current electricity.
The world's first public electricity supply was provided in late 1881, when the streets of the Surrey town of Godalming in the UK were lit with electric light. This system was powered from a water wheel on the River Wey, which drove a Siemens alternator that supplied a number of arc lamps within the town. This supply scheme also provided electricity to a number of shops and premises to light 34 incandescent Swan light bulbs.
Additionally, Robert Hammond, in December 1881, demonstrated the new electric light in the Sussex town of Brighton in the UK for a trial period. The ensuing success of this installation enabled Hammond to put this venture on both a commercial and legal footing, as a number of shop owners wanted to use the new electric light. Thus the Hammond Electricity Supply Co. was launched. Whilst the Godalming and Holborn Viaduct Schemes closed after a few years the Brighton Scheme continued on, and supply was in 1887 made available for 24 hours per day.
In early 1882, Edison opened the world?s first steam-powered electricity generating station at Holborn Viaduct in London, where he had entered into an agreement with the City Corporation for a period of three months to provide street lighting. In time he had supplied a number of local consumers with electric light. The method of supply was direct current (DC).
Źródło: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_industry#History
kWh - definition
The symbol "kWh" is commonly used in commercial, educational, scientific and media publications,4 and is the usual practice in electrical power engineering.
Other abbreviations and symbols may be encountered:
"kW h" is less commonly used. It is consistent with SI standards (but note that the kilowatt-hour is a non-SI unit). The international standard for SI states that in forming a compound unit symbol, "Multiplication must be indicated by a space or a half-high (centered) dot (?), since otherwise some prefixes could be misinterpreted as a unit symbol" (i.e., kW h or kW?h). This is supported by a voluntary standard6 issued jointly by an international (IEEE) and national (ASTM) organization. However, at least one major usage guide and the IEEE/ASTM standard allow "kWh" (but do not mention other multiples of the watt hour). One guide published by NIST specifically recommends avoiding "kWh" "to avoid possible confusion".
The US official fuel-economy window sticker for electric vehicles uses the abbreviation "kW-hrs".
Variations in capitalization are sometimes seen: KWh, KWH, kwh etc.
"kW?h" is, like "kW h", preferred with SI standards, but it is very rarely used in practice.
The notation "kW/h", as a symbol for kilowatt-hour, is not correct.
Źródło: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour