The watt – a unit equivalent to 1 joule per second or .0013404 horsepower – measures electrical power in terms of capacity or demand at a point in time.
| Number of watts| What they'll power
| 1 W | 1 Christmas tree light
| 100 W | 1 standard lightbulb, 1 PC (without printer), or 5 plug-in vibrators
| 1,000 W (1 kW) | 2 refrigerators, 100 electric toothbrushes, or 1 box of servers in a server farm
| 100,000 W (100 kW) | 25 homes at peak demand with AC or 1 McDonald's
| 1,000,000 W (1 MW) | 1 ten-story office building or 1é6 of the National Gallery of Art
| 100,000,000 W (100 MW) | 10 server farms of 100,000 to 200,000 square feet each
| 1,000,000,000 W (1 GW) | 100 factories or Seattle
| 10,000,000,000 W (10 GW) | 35 Nicaraguas or New York City
Sources: Edison Electric Institute; Electric Power Research Institute; CIA World Factbook 2000
