Why are batteries measured in ampere-hours but electricity usage measured in kilowatt-hours?

\$kW \cdot h\$ are a measure of energy, for which grid customers are billed and usually shows up on your invoice in easily understood numbers (0-1000, not 0-1 or very large numbers; ranges which, unfortunately, confuse many people).

\$A \cdot h\$ are a measure of electrical charge. A battery (or capacitor) can store more or less a certain amount of charge regardless of its operating conditions, whereas its output energy can change. If the voltage curve for a battery in certain operating conditions are known (circuit, temperature, lifetime), then its output energy is also known, but not otherwise, though you can come up with some pretty good estimates.

To convert from \$A \cdot h\$ to \$kW \cdot h\$ for a constant voltage source, multiply by that voltage; for a changing voltage and/or current source, integrate over time: $$ \frac{1 kW\cdot h}{1000 W\cdot h}\int_{t_1}^{t_2} \! I(t)E(t)dt ~;~~E~[V],~I~[A],~{t_{1,2}}~[h]$$


A note about battery voltage: Rated battery voltage is "nominal". A fully charged 12 volt lead acid battery actually starts out around ~14.4 volts and drops off as you draw energy from it. The actual battery voltage depends on a number of factors not limited to state of charge, battery age, load profile, chemistry, etc,... For instance, A lithium ion battery of 3.7V (nominal) may start out at 4.15 volts and diminish to ~2.7 volts before requiring recharge.

Watt-Hours (or kW-H) is an indicator of the energy storage capacity of the battery, whereas amp-hours would refer to how many amps minimum you can draw from a battery at full charge for an hour before it was no longer capable of providing that level of flow (perhaps at or above the rated voltage?). They are closely related, but not equivalent. Some batteries are designed more for high current draw devices, whereas others are designed to last a long time for lower current draw devices.

Appended: Now that I look at my cell phone battery, I notice that it has all three ratings printed on it. It is a Lithium-Ion battery whose nominal voltage rating is 3.7V. It's energy capacity is marked as 4.81 Watt-Hours. It's electric charge rating is 1300 milliAmp-Hours. This seems to indicate that Energy = Voltage * Electric Charge (at least in terms of the battery ratings), though I think that this equation is hiding the fact that there is an integration of P=VI going on and that V is more like an average value than a constant, which probably gives a pretty good approximation.


A batteries voltage changes over its lifetime. The current is set by the circuit it is connected to.

As the current is a constant known value and can be predicted, and the voltage cannot, the units are in the value that can be predicted.

Your electricity supply is a constant voltage and can be predicted.