How many megawatts are in one gigawatt?

One gigawatt is equivalent to one thousand megawatts. This relationship derives from the metric system, where each prefix represents a power of ten. In this case, 'giga-' denotes a factor of one billion (10^9), and 'mega-' denotes a factor of one million (10^6). Thus, when converting gigawatts to megawatts, you multiply the number of gigawatts by 1,000 (since one gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts). This fundamental conversion is important in fields related to energy generation and consumption, where understanding the scale of power is essential for various applications.