Watt-seconds to Gigawatt-hours conversion

How to convert watt-seconds to gigawatt-hours?

Absolutely! Let's start with understanding the conversion.

Conversion from Watt-seconds to Gigawatt-hours

1. Watt-seconds to Watt-hours:

   • There are 3600 seconds in an hour.
   • Therefore, $1 \text{ Watt-second} = \dfrac{1 \text{ Watt-second}}{3600 \text{ seconds/hour}} = \dfrac{1}{3600} \text{ Watt-hours}$.

2. Watt-hours to Gigawatt-hours:

   • There are 1,000,000,000 (or $10^9$) Watts in a Gigawatt.
   • Therefore, $1 \text{ Watt-hour} = \dfrac{1}{10^9} \text{ Gigawatt-hours}$.

Combining these two steps together:

$1 \text{ Watt-second} = \left(\dfrac{1 \text{ Watt-second}}{3600 \text{ seconds/hour}}\right) \times \left(\dfrac{1 \text{ Watt-hour}}{10^9 \text{ Watt-hours/Gigawatt-hour}}\right)$

$1 \text{ Watt-second} = \dfrac{1}{3600 \times 10^9} = \dfrac{1}{3.6 \times 10^{12}} \text{ Gigawatt-hours}$

Real World Examples for Watt-seconds:

1. 1000 Watt-seconds (or 1 Kilojoule):

   • This is the amount of energy needed to power a 100-watt light bulb for 10 seconds.
   • A small appliance, like a handheld vacuum, might use 1000 Watt-seconds in a very short burst.

2. 1,000,000 Watt-seconds (or 1 Megajoule):

   • This is roughly the amount of energy consumed by a typical household (of about 100 watts) in around 2.78 hours.
   • It's also roughly equivalent to the kinetic energy of a car traveling at highway speeds.

3. 3.6 x 10^6 Watt-seconds (or 1 Kilowatt-hour):

   • Powering a 100-watt bulb for 10 hours.
   • The amount of energy you get from a single standard rechargeable AA battery is just under 10,000 Watt-seconds, so a kilowatt-hour is equivalent to the energy from about 360 such AA batteries.

4. 1 Gigawatt-hour (or 3.6 x 10^12 Watt-seconds):

   • Powering 300,000 homes for one hour.
   • The amount of energy a large power plant might produce in a few hours.

Key takeaway:

• 1 Watt-second = $\dfrac{1}{3.6 \times 10^{12}} \text{ Gigawatt-hours}$.

This conversion shows the scale difference between personal, household, and industrial energy uses elegantly. The higher up the scale you go (from kilojoules to gigawatt-hours), the more impactful the energy amount becomes, pertinent to large populations and substantial infrastructure.