Rate of Doing Work

What is Power?
We can define power as the rate of doing work, it is the work done in unit time. The SI unit of power is Watt (W) which is joules per second (J/s). Sometimes the power of motor vehicles and other machines is given in terms of Horsepower (hp), which is approximately equal to 745.7 watts.

What is Average Power?
We can define average power as the total energy consumed divided by the total time taken. In simple language, we can say that average power is the average amount of work done or energy converted per unit of time.

Power Formula
Power is defined as the rate at which work is done upon an object. Power is a time-based quantity. Which is related to how fast a job is done. The formula for power is mentioned below.
Power = Work / time
P = W / t

Unit of Power
The unit for standard metric work is the Joule and the standard metric unit for time is the second, so the standard metric unit for power is a Joule / second, defined as a Watt and abbreviated W.



Important Points About Power
Refer to our work and energy articles to understand them in details, the following points about power will summarise this topic:
(a) It is the rate at which energy is being used.
(b) It decides how quickly work could be done.
(c) It could change so there are two ways to measure power.