In 1 petawatts there are 1,000,000 gigawatts. Meanwhile in 1 gigawatts there are 0.00000100000 petawatts. Keep reading to learn more about each unit of measure and how they are calculated. Or just use the Gigawatts to Petawatts calculator above to convert any number.
* Values rounded to 6 decimal places for readability
To convert petawatts (PW) to gigawatts (GW), use the power-of-10 relationship between metric prefixes.
Use this method any time you need a clean petawatt to gigawatt conversion for power values.
A petawatt is a unit of power equal to (10^{15}) watts. Power is the rate of energy use or energy output. Petawatts show up in large-scale science and laser work, where power levels can be extreme.
A gigawatt is a unit of power equal to (10^{9}) watts. Gigawatts are common for power plants and electric grid output. This unit helps describe large, steady power levels in a clear way.
There are 1,000,000 gigawatts in 1 petawatt.
Because:
Use this conversion:
It works because a petawatt is one million times larger than a gigawatt.
Use the reverse conversion:
This is helpful when a number looks too large in gigawatts.
Here are quick examples many people use:
Petawatts and gigawatts use different metric prefixes:
That’s a gap of (10^{6}), so petawatts are one million times larger.
No. The power stays the same. Only the unit changes. Converting petawatts to gigawatts just rewrites the same value in a different scale.
In practice, grids are almost always measured in gigawatts or terawatts. Petawatts are so large that the numbers often become less useful for normal grid reporting. Petawatts are more common in short bursts of extreme output, like high-power laser pulses.
Watts (W) measure power, the rate of energy use.
Watt-hours (Wh) measure energy, the total amount used over time.
Example:
Standard unit symbols are:
The capitalization matters. mW is milliwatt, not megawatt, and GW is gigawatt, not something else.
The Calculate Box tool to convert petawatts to gigawatts uses the open source script Convert.js to convert units of measurement. To use this tool, simply type a petawatts value in the box and have it instantly converted to gigawatts.