How Much Power Is 1 Gigawatt?

A date that most movie buffs know by heart, October 21, 2015, is the day Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel to the future in Steven Spielberg’s 1989 classic Back to the Future Part II.

Although you may not have remembered the date, you’ve probably heard of Doc’s DeLorean, which takes 1.21 gigawatts (GW) of power to travel through time. Admittedly, our national labs haven’t quite figured out time travel just yet, but they do analyze power.

Graphic by Sarah Harman | U.S. Department of Energy

For instance, at the end of 2022, there were over 144 GW of wind power and 110 GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) total in the United States. To help put this number in perspective, it’s important to know just how big 1 GW is. A watt is a measure of power and there are 1 billion watts in 1 GW. (And if you wanted to break it down even further, 1 million watts = 1 megawatt [MW] and 1,000 watts = 1 kilowatt [kW].)

Need a stronger visual? Here are six examples equal to 1 GW of power:

How Much Power Is 1 Gigawatt?

2.469 Million Photovoltaic (PV) Panels

Based on a representative silicon model panel size of 405 watts. (Source)

310 Utility-Scale Wind Turbines

Based on the average utility-scale wind turbine size of 3.23 MW installed in 2022. (Source)

100 Million LED Bulbs

Based on typical performance, a light-emitting diode (LED) A19 lamp is roughly 92 lumens per watt and consumes about 10 watts. (Source)

Roughly 1.3 Million Horses

Based on horsepower to watts conversion: 746 watts = 1 horsepower. Image courtesy of Cynthia Shahan | CleanTechnica.

2,000 Corvette Z06s

According to the automaker’s website, the Chevy Corvette Z06 engine delivers 670 horsepower. Two-thousand of those engines would equal 1.34 million horsepower, or 1 GW. (Source)

9,090 Nissan LEAFs

The Nissan LEAF has a 110 kilowatt (kW) motor. So, 1 million kW divided by 110 kW = the maximum power of 9,090 Nissan LEAFs. (Source)

This blog was originally published in August 2019 and has been updated.

Courtesy of Energy.gov.