gigawatt

noun

giga·​watt ˈji-gə-ˌwät How to pronounce gigawatt (audio) ˈgi- How to pronounce gigawatt (audio)
: a unit of power equal to one billion watts

Examples of gigawatt in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Their analysis found that adding renewables to this land could generate 2000 gigawatts of new clean electricity, a number not considered in any previous study in the US. Sweta Chakraborty, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025 The result: Europe needed alternative sources of energy. Azerbaijan hopes to generate gigawatts of renewable electricity and send it across the Black Sea to Europe. IEEE Spectrum, 12 Mar. 2025 Texas, the state where Wright delivered his speech, was the top state for new solar last year, adding 11.6 gigawatts of new capacity, according to the report. Faisal Kutty, Newsweek, 12 Mar. 2025 Meta plans to bring about one gigawatt of compute online this year, Zuckerberg said, and will end the year with more than 1.3 million graphics processing units, or GPUs. Britney Nguyen, Quartz, 31 Jan. 2025 See All Example Sentences for gigawatt

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1962, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of gigawatt was circa 1962

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Cite this Entry

“Gigawatt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gigawatt. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025.

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