gigawatt
/ˈɡɪɡəˌwɒt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.96 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One thousand million (10⁹) watts, an amount of power large enough to power such things as a midsize town or several small ones. (Consuming 1 gigawatt during a duration of 1 hour consumes 1 gigawatt-hour of energy.)
noun
The amount of data center capacity or amount of compute that this amount of power can provide under the current technological state of the art (PUE, clock speed, etc).
Example Sentences
- "Holonyms: TW, terawatt < PW, petawatt"
- "Meronyms: mW, milliwatt < W, watt < kW, kilowatt < MW, megawatt"
- "In the 2020s, the race for AI data centers has Big Tech searching for ways to add multiple gigawatts of additional grid capacity to a regional power grid."
- "In a famous movie about time travel, the mad scientist tells the teenage hero that the time machine requires 1.21 gigawatts of power to operate."
- "The European Union's string of record-setting solar power deployment is on track to come to an end this year as demand wanes for rooftop solar panels due to lower wholesale electricity prices. Solar power additions are set to contract 1.4% in the EU, the first annual dip since 2016, according to a report from industry group Solar Power Europe. While new additions are still at historically high levels, it shows the impact on growth of saturated solar power markets where prices regularly dip below zero during the sunniest parts of the year. Overall, the EU is on track to add 64.2 gigawatts of new capacity, according to the industry group. That view contrasts with analysis from BloombergNEF that sees slight growth this year in the bloc."
- "a gigawatt of compute"
Etymology
Etymology tree Ancient Greek Γίγας (Gígas) Ancient Greek γίγας (gígas)der. English giga- English watt English gigawatt From giga- + watt.
Inflected Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
mul:GW