terawatthours

Terawatt-hour is a unit of energy equivalent to one trillion watt-hours. A watt-hour is a unit of energy equal to one watt of power sustained for one hour. Therefore, a terawatt-hour represents a very large amount of energy. It is commonly used to measure the generation or consumption of electricity on a large scale, such as by entire countries or continents over a period of time.

To put it in perspective, one terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) or 1,000,000 megawatt-hours (MWh). The prefix "tera-" signifies a factor of 10^12, meaning one trillion. This unit is often encountered when discussing global energy statistics, the output of major power plants, or the energy needs of industrialized nations. For instance, a country might generate or consume tens or hundreds of terawatt-hours of electricity annually. Its large magnitude makes it suitable for discussing the vast energy flows associated with modern infrastructure and economies.