kilowatt

plural kilowatts · alternative kilo-watt

1. One thousand (10³) watts, an amount of power large enough to power such things as a typical home appliance (e.g., a microwave oven, a toaster, or a hair dryer). (Consuming 1 kilowatt during a duration of 1 hour consumes 1 kilowatt-hour of energy.)

   Meronyms: mW, milliwatt < W, watt

   3 more examples

   Holonyms: MW, megawatt < GW, gigawatt < TW, terawatt < PW, petawatt

   And one California kilowatt equals 3 East Coast KWs. And—as everybody knows that—we, on the East Coast, are the only legal ones.

   1974, CQ: The Radio Amateurs' Journal, volume 30, number 1, page 36

   Each turbogenerator consisted of a steam turbine, powered by 900 psi of superheated steam, that was coupled by a set of reduction gears to a General Electric marine alternating-current generator operating at 1,800 rpm. Each generator had a capacity of 2,000 kilowatts of three-phase power at 450 volts and 60 hertz. The main 450-volt switchboard was energized by the two turbogenerators. The emergency switchboard, in the emergency generator room, was fed from the main switchboard through an electrical tie.

   2017 December 12, National Transportation Safety Board, “1.3.5 Electrical Generation and Distribution System”, in Marine Accident Report: Sinking of US Cargo Vessel SS El Faro, Atlantic Ocean, Northeast of Acklins and Crooked Island, Bahamas, October 1, 2015, archived from the original on 15 May 2022, pages 36–37

   Synonyms: mul:kW, mul:㎾

2. informalCatachresis for kilowatt-hour.