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The volt-ampere (SI symbol: VA, [1] sometimes V⋅A or V A) is the unit of measurement for apparent power in an electrical circuit. It is the product of the root mean square voltage (in volts) and the root mean square current (in amperes). [2] Volt-amperes are usually used for analyzing alternating current (AC) circuits.
In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which electrical work is performed when a current of one ampere (A) flows across an electrical potential difference of one volt (V), meaning the watt is equivalent to the volt-ampere (the latter unit, however, is used for a different quantity from the real power of an electrical circuit).
Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a circuit.Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power, defined as one joule per second.Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions of watts are called kilowatts, megawatts and gigawatts respectively.
Ammeter and Voltmeter on a power supply. Electrical measurements are the methods, devices and calculations used to measure electrical quantities. Measurement of electrical quantities may be done to measure electrical parameters of a system.
At that time, the volt was defined as the potential difference [i.e., what is nowadays called the "voltage (difference)"] across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. The "international volt" was defined in 1893 as 1 ⁄ 1.434 of the emf of a Clark cell.
Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points. [1] [2] In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to move a positive test charge from the first point to the second point.
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Apparently because current (in AC circuits) often doesn't track voltage directly (for capacitive loads, the current rises and falls ahead of the voltage; for inductive loads, the change in current lags behind it), you can't just multiply volts times amperes to get watts, because the volts and amps don't "line up." So volt-amperes are used ...