terawatt-hour en · NOUN
Etymology
By surface analysis, terawatt + hour, or, by surface analysis, tera- + watt-hour.
Meanings
-
A unit of energy equal to that provided by one terawatt acting for one hour.
New facilities consume more electricity than ever. A rack of servers stuffed with AI chips requires about ten times more power than a non-AI version a few years ago. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that in 2023 America's data centres used 176 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity. That is forecast to increase to between 325TWh and 580TWh by 2028 (see chart 2), or 7-12% of America's total consumption, with hyperscalers accounting for about half.
2025 July 28, Editorial staff, “How big tech plans to feed AI's voracious appetite for power. As data centres get more energy-hungry, the hyperscalers get more creative”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2025:Holonym: terawatt-year
Meronyms: milliwatt-hour < watt-hour < kilowatt-hour < megawatt-hour < gigawatt-hour
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| terawatt-hours | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Relateds
terawatt hour · mul:TW·h · mul:TWh · mul:TW h
Translations (4)
fi terawattitunti (unit of electrical energy) · it terawattora (unit of electrical energy) · de Terawattstunde (unit of electrical energy) · sv terawattimme (unit of electrical energy)