How many homes could be heated from this source assuming heating requirements of 40 kWh/d per house?

Question

A thermal power plant produces 82 MWh/d of excess heat energy. How many homes could be heated from this source assuming heating requirements of 40 kWh/d per house?

Answer 1

This is a problem knowing what is a MWh and a kWh are. To do this problem, you first of all convert the units to be consistent with each other in order to figure the total number of homes the thermal power plant would heat up. When you do the math the answer contains a number that is unitless indicating the number of homes.

 

1 MWh = 1000 kWh Hence, 82 MWh/d = 82 *10³ kWh/d

 

Now this becomes a algebra problem in which one could set up.

 

Let n = the number of homes

 

Thus,

 

82*10³ = 40*n

 

Note: The units kWh/d need not be in the equation due to them being equivalent on each side. Just make sure the units are consistent in order to solving these kinds of problems.

 

Now, I'll leave it up to you to solve for n.

Answer 2

Take the 82MWh/d and convert the units to kWh/d which makes it 82000kWh/d. Then divide. So (82000kWh/d)/(40kWh/d)= 2050 homes