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Energy & Renewables vocabulary · Energy Basics and Units

Megawatt

Meaning in energy & renewables, with examples

/ˈmeɡəwɒt/nounCore term

In energy & renewables, megawatt means: A unit of power equal to one million watts, or 1,000 kilowatts. It is used to describe the size of power plants, wind turbines and large solar projects.

In Turkish: megavat, MW

How it is used

Megawatts describe power, the rate at which energy is produced or used, not the amount of energy. You say a 50-megawatt wind farm or a 5 MW turbine. National systems are described in gigawatts (GW). For energy over time, use megawatt-hours (MWh).

Example sentences

  1. Each turbine is rated at 4.5 megawatts.

  2. The project adds 120 megawatts of solar capacity to the region.

Common collocations

  • a 100-megawatt plant
  • megawatts of capacity
  • megawatt-hour
  • rated at 5 megawatts
  • kilowatt-hourA unit of energy equal to using or producing 1,000 watts of power for one hour. Household electricity bills and many energy statistics are given in kWh.
  • installed capacityThe maximum power output that a power plant, or all the plants in a country, can deliver according to their design, usually given in MW or GW.
  • kilowatt peakThe power output of a solar system under standard test conditions, used to state the size of a PV installation. It is written kWp; larger plants use MWp.
  • power plantAn industrial facility that produces electricity on a large scale, for example by burning gas or coal, splitting atoms or using the energy of water, wind or sunlight.

More terms: Energy Basics and Units

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