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You will read terms like megawatts, megawatt hours, power and energy on this web site. But what do these terms mean? And what's the difference? This table explains the most common terms you will come across on this site. You can also find a glossary of general electricity industry terms by clicking here.
| TERM | EXPLANATION |
| Power | Power is the rate at which energy is used (or generated). Power is different from energy, because it has to be measured over a time period. |
| Energy | Energy is the capacity to do work. Energy is never created or destroyed; it just changes form. For example, coal, gas, wind, the sun, etc have energy (the capacity to do work). They can produce energy in the form of heat and electricity. Kinetic energy from waves, can be converted to electricity. |
| Joule | One joule is the energy spent by a force of one newton moving one meter along the direction of the force. |
| Newton | 1 newton is the force of Earth's gravity on an object with a mass of about 102 grams (such as a small apple). |
| Watt | The watt is a measure of how much electrical energy is used per second. For example, a light bulb uses energy at a rate of about 25 to 100 watts. One watt = one joule/second. |
| Kilowatt | A measure of power equal to one thousand watts. For example, a 1000 watt hairdryer uses 1 Kw every second. |
| Megawatt | The megawatt (symbol: MW) is equal to one million (106) watts. |
Megawatt hour |
A megawatt hour (MWh) is how much energy is produced by a 1MW generator in one hour. A 320 MW generator will produce 320 MW in one hour, 640 in two hours, 3200 MW in ten hours, etc. |
| Gigawatt | A gigawatt (GW) is one billion watts. |
| Terawatt | A terawatt (TW) is one trillion watts. In Australia in 2006, Australia’s electricity generators produced 255 TW hours of power (255 billion kilowatt hours). |