What is the difference between MW and MWh?

MW is a rate — how fast power is drawn at any instant. MWh is an amount of energy over time. A 5 MW facility running flat out for an hour uses 5 MWh.

How many homes does 100 MW equal?

There is no single honest answer. Home equivalents depend on climate, housing stock, and whether you compare peak demand or annual energy, so any figure needs its assumptions stated.

Scale

What does 5 MW actually mean?

People see 5 MW, 100 MW, and 1 GW and nod. They are not the same animal. And power is not energy.

Fact

Power · MW

5 MW

ERCOT’s 2026 trending note: 75 MW at a single site can power 18,750 homes during peak hours. That is 250 homes per MW as a peak snapshot. So 5 MW ≈ 1,250 homes at that instant.

Qualified: peak-hour analogy, not an annual bill, not a San Antonio feeder.

Estimate

Energy · MWh

37,717 MWh/yr

At this tool’s expected utilization and PUE, about 3,592 average U.S. households (EIA ~10,500 kWh/year). A high-utilization AI hall uses more of its pipe, all year, than a neighborhood uses its peak.

Qualified: screening model. Empty halls do not use nameplate.

5 MW sits under ERCOT’s 75 MW large-user line. It is still a serious municipal load.
100 MW is a colo / hyperscale hall. Land, substations, and generators dominate the drawing.
1 GW is not a building. It is a campus, a generation plan, and a political event.
ERCOT’s large-load queue is hundreds of gigawatts of requests. That is not 1 GW, multiplied, operating.

Data last checked 2026-09-04 · Current public data is a snapshot, not a live meter

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