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Power vs. Energy

I can get worked up about units, and this can really annoy people. It especially annoyed students I taught in grad school. I was pretty tyrannical when grading; they always had to include units in their calculations. They could have all the right numbers, but they didn’t get full credit unless all the units were right too. I have no regrets about being such a stickler, because I see tons of confusion about this in the building & energy fields. So here’s a rant about one of my pet peeves: power and energy.

Question: What’s the difference between Power and Energy?

Is this some kind of philosophical question? A koan to meditate upon? No. There’s a real answer (in the engineering world at least). Power is the rate of energy.

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