Astronomy uses special units because the SI units are more than 10 orders of magnitude different. You'd have to use really exotic prefixes like "zetta" or "yotta" if you wanted to keep using metres.

The difference between a kilowatt and a megajoule is just 3 orders of magnitude. You just have to switch from "k" to "M". People are already familiar not only with "M" but with "G" and "T" because of Megabytes, Gigabytes, Terabytes, etc. There's nothing about kilowatt hours that's more intuitive or easy to use.

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

kilowatt hours ARE more intuitive than watt seconds when talking about something like solar panels, electric cars, and household energy where generation and consumption are better understood on the scale of hours.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No they're not. You're just used to them.

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Are you seriously trying to say that if you're talking about a solar panel it makes more sense to talk about how much energy it produces per second than per hour. If you wanted to think about the amount a panel can produce per day are you sitting there thinking about how many seconds of sunlight it will get in a day.

If you want to estimate the energy usage of a 400 watt lighting system during an 8 hour workday you think it's more intuitive to go 400 * 3600 * 8 / 1,000,000 than 400 / 1000 * 8?

The reason seemingly every electrical utility in the world uses kWh is because hours are the more intuitive unit of time for this context.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 13 minutes ago

Are you seriously saying that when you're talking about a solar panel you care about how much energy it produces per hour, not per second, per day, per week, or per year?

If you want to estimate the energy usage of a 400 watt lighting system during an 8 hour workday

Why would you want to do that? And what kind of lighting system in 2026 uses 400 Watts?

Are you seriously saying that when you're using your 2000 watt hair dryer, you want to pretend that you used it for an hour, and then scale that back to the few seconds you actually used it? Are you seriously pretending that your 800 watt microwave oven is on for a full hour at full power while you're heating your nuggets, so it makes sense to think of it in terms of kilowatt hours?

The reason most people think kWh is intuitive is that they're used to it because their electrical utility uses it. It's the same reason that Americans think Fahrenheit is more intuitive, while the rest of the world thinks Celsius is more intuitive. It's why Americans think miles make more sense for measuring distance, while the rest of the world thinks kilometers are easier to use.