What does megawatt mean?
Megawatt is a noun denoting a unit of power equal to one million watts. It is used to describe the output or capacity of electrical equipment, power plants, solar farms, wind farms, generators, and similar systems. The term is especially common in engineering, energy, and news reporting, where it is frequently abbreviated as MW. Because a megawatt is a standardized unit, it allows generators, facilities, and electrical networks to be compared directly regardless of size. The word can also appear in technical compounds such as megawatt-hour, although that related unit measures energy rather than power. While “megawatt” is firmly associated with electricity and mechanical power, it is also used figuratively in expressions describing exceptionally great power, influence, or impact. Its prefix “mega-” means one million, making the scale of the unit immediately apparent.
nounA unit of power equal to one million watts, used especially to describe the output or capacity of power stations, generators, and other electrical systems. The abbreviation MW is commonly used in technical and news contexts.
- A unit of power equal to one million watts.
"The new wind farm is expected to produce 80 megawatts of power."
"The solar installation is designed to generate up to 25 megawatts at peak output."
"Each emergency generator at the facility is rated at two megawatts."
The plural is formed by adding -s and is common when describing multiple units of power.
"The two facilities together provide more than 500 megawatts of capacity."
A megawatt is a million watts—a prefix that turns an ordinary unit of power into an impressive one.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does megawatt come from?
The word combines the prefix mega-, derived from Greek megas meaning “great” or “large,” with watt, the unit named after the engineer and physicist James Watt. In the International System of Units, mega- denotes one million, so megawatt literally means one million watts. The compound follows the standard SI prefix system used to form larger units such as kilowatt and gigawatt.
Related word forms
How megawatt is actually used
Technical and generally neutral in register. It is common in energy, engineering, and infrastructure reporting, where the abbreviation MW is also widely used. The related unit megawatt-hour measures energy rather than power.
Easily confused with megawatt
A megawatt is a unit of power, whereas a megabyte is a unit of digital information storage.
A megawatt measures power, whereas a megahertz measures frequency.