Why'd Cantonese restaurants desire 40,000 BTU for soup?

Out of curiosity, I was reading about this Metallic Mold Blower Wok Range (1 Burner 1 Soup Pot). Here's another.

Did I pin-point the Soup Burner correctly?
Residential gas stoves range from 400 to 18,000 BTUs. Why the necessity for 40,000 BTU? Ceteris paribus, how does it affect the soup?

Best Answer

For a domestic kitchen a few thousand BTU is plenty as you will rarely need to heat more than a few liters of liquid.

In a professional kitchen you might be asked to prepare a 30-litre portion of soup or broth or make 5 kilos of dry pasta at once.

Doing that on a domestic range would take ages and that is not something you want in a kitchen. And with the pasta example it might not even work, you'd never get the water back to boiling within the cooking time, leading to soggy pasta.

Once you switch to simmering you simply dial back the burner, these ranges are usually good at finetuning. Or you could transfer the pan to a quieter area on a smaller burner if you have that in your kitchen.