Should i use amps or watts or Va to measure electric consumption?

Question

i have a plug in meter which is call kill a watt by P3 International also there's a function to measure va which one should i use

Answer 1

Domestic consumers are charged for watts as indicated on your bill so this is presumably what you want to know.

There are some things you can do if you see variations between VA and watts but this will only save small amounts in a reduction of losses and maybe allow smaller wire to be used.

Answer 2

If you want to know what you are being charged for by the power company, you should be using Watts.

A classic example of a reactive load where the VA is not the same as the Watts is a motor running - say a refrigerator. A motor is an inductive device (as opposed to a capacitive device) which stores and returns energy as it runs.

The meter on your house that the power company reads takes into account the energy used and returned and only charges you for the actual used energy (Watts) and not for the reactive power (VA).