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Power Converter

Convert between watts, kilowatts, megawatts and horsepower.

Power Converter

Professional grade conversion for power units.

Watt
Select Unit
0.001
Kilowatt
Select Unit

Conversion Formula

1 Watt ≈ 0.001 Kilowatt

What Power Converter does

Power is the rate at which energy is used or produced. It is not the same as energy: a kettle rated at 2 kilowatts is describing how fast it draws power, while the energy it consumes depends on how long it runs.

Horsepower is the survivor of an eighteenth-century marketing comparison to draught horses, and it persists in engine specifications.

  • Watt, kilowatt and megawatt
  • Mechanical horsepower at about 745.7 watts

How to use Power Converter

  1. 1

    Enter the value

    Type the amount you want to convert. The result updates as you type.

  2. 2

    Select the units

    Choose what your value is in and what you want it in, for example kilowatts to horsepower.

  3. 3

    Copy the result

    The copy button gives you the unformatted number, without thousands separators, ready to paste into a spreadsheet or code.

Limits and known behaviour

  • Horsepower here is mechanical horsepower of about 745.7 watts. Metric horsepower, used in much of Europe and often written PS or CV, is about 735.5 watts, so engine figures can differ by roughly 1.4% depending on the source.
  • Electrical horsepower and boiler horsepower are different again and are not offered.
  • Power multiplied by time gives energy; use the energy converter for that quantity.
  • Arithmetic uses double-precision floating point, so a converted value can end in a small representation residue. That is a property of binary arithmetic, not of the conversion factor.

Privacy and data handling

Runs entirely in your browser

  • The conversion is arithmetic performed in this page. Nothing you enter is transmitted or stored.
  • The tool works offline once the page has loaded.

Site-wide data handling, including analytics and advertising, is described in the privacy policy.

Frequently asked questions

Which horsepower is used here?

Mechanical horsepower, about 745.7 watts. A European specification quoting PS is using metric horsepower, which is slightly smaller.

What is the difference between kW and kWh?

A kilowatt is a rate of power. A kilowatt-hour is the energy used by running at one kilowatt for one hour, which is what an electricity bill charges for.