Metrication in the United States There are no U.S. customary units for electric current, potential difference, or charge since these concepts were developed after the international adoption of metric in science. The metric units ampere, volt, ohm and coulomb are the only units used. The SI term hertz has replaced the term "cycles per second" as a unit of frequency. Energy is often measured in watt hours, BTUs, therms or calories rather than the SI joule. Residential and commercial electrical energy use is metered and billed in kilowatt hours, kW·h, as in most metric countries. Force measurements regularly use the pound instead of the SI
Current density is the charge density (SI unit: coulombs per cubic metre), in which "n"(r, "t") is the number of particles per unit volume ("number density") (SI unit: m), "q" is the charge of the individual particles with density "n" (SI unit: coulombs). A common approximation to the current density assumes the current simply is proportional to the electric field, as expressed by: where E is the electric field and "σ" is the electrical conductivity. Conductivity "σ" is the reciprocal (inverse) of electrical resistivity and has the SI units of siemens per metre (S⋅m), and E has the SI units of newtons