1 Answer

Horse power (more correctly brake horse power, usually abbreviated to "bhp") is a measure of how fast energy is being used. This is a different concept from amps, which measure electric current, i.e. the "rate" at which electricity flows: to know how much power is being used by an electrical device (light bulb, refrigerator, etc) you need to know the Voltage (220 or 240 V in most parts of the world, but 110 or 115 in some) and multiply this by the current in amps. This gives you the power (in watts, which is the "metric" way of measuring power, as opposed to the British and American way). It is simple to convert watts to bhp (or vice versa), as 1 bhp = 746 Watts (or 0.746 Kw).
Example 1. Your car engine is capable of generating 200 bhp. You could also describe this as being capable of generating 149 Kw (200 x 0.746), and many foreign car manufacturers use this rather than bhp.
Example 2. Suppose you live in a country where the voltage is 240 V, and you have an electric heater which draws 10 amps. Your heater is consuming power (energy) at the rate of 240 x 10 = 2400 watts (i.e. 2.4 Kw). This is 2.4 / 0.746 = 3.2 bhp (but you would be thought very odd to rate an electric heater in this way - the whole world uses the metric system for this!)

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