Kilowatt-hours to Foot-pounds (kWh to ft⋅lbf)

1 kilowatt-hour equals 2,655,223.737 foot-pounds (rounded).

1 kilowatt-hour = 2,655,223.737 foot-pounds

How to convert kilowatt-hours to foot-pounds

To convert kilowatt-hours to foot-pounds, multiply the number of kilowatt-hours by 2,655,223.737. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply foot-pounds by 3.766160968×10⁻⁷ (rounded).

foot-pounds = kilowatt-hours × 2,655,223.737

Example: 10 kilowatt-hours = 26,552,237.37 foot-pounds.

The 'calorie' on food labels is really a kilocalorie. The thermochemical calorie (4.184 J) is used here unless marked IT.

About these units

Kilowatt-hour (kWh)

Metric (SI)Current unit

3.6 million joules, the energy used by a 1,000-watt appliance in an hour. The billing unit for household electricity.

Before it was a line on every power bill, the kilowatt-hour had a British nickname: the Board of Trade unit, abbreviated B.T.U. after the government body that regulated the electricity industry until 1942, when the Ministry of Power took over. In India it is still often called simply a unit, and a million of them, written MU, is a gigawatt-hour.

A kilowatt-hour is the energy of a 1 kW device running for an hour, which is 3.6 MJ, or about 3,412 British thermal units. A 100 W television watched for 10 hours uses one, and boiling a liter of water in an electric kettle takes about 0.1. In 2020 the average US household used 893 kWh a month, an average continuous draw of about 1.22 kW.

Utilities multiply the kilowatt-hours consumed by a price per kWh, and larger customers may also pay for peak demand. One common error is writing kW/h, which would mean kilowatts per hour, a rate of change of power, not energy.

1 kilowatt-hour = 3,600,000 joules (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilowatt-hour; Wikipedia: British thermal unit; Wikipedia: Watt-hour

Foot-pound (ft⋅lbf)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

The work done by a force of one pound-force over one foot: about 1.35582 joules. Used for torque and energy in US engineering and ballistics.

Foot-pound hides a trap: the same words name two different things. As energy, a foot-pound is what a force of one pound-force transfers when it acts through a distance of one foot, about 1.355818 J. As torque, usually called the pound-foot, it is dimensionally the same but physically distinct, since energy is a scalar and torque is a vector, which is why careful writers specify foot-pound of energy or of torque.

The unit is tied to the early history of energy. In 1850 James Prescott Joule published a refined value of 772.692 foot-pounds of work per British thermal unit, which was the key figure in his demonstration that work converts to heat at a fixed rate. The same system defines the mechanical horsepower as 550 foot-pounds per second.

Today American ballistics is the best-known user. Muzzle energy of a bullet is commonly stated in foot-pounds, and a figure of about 7 kJ for an elephant gun, which is roughly 5,200 foot-pounds, shows the typical range for large rifle cartridges.

1 foot-pound = 1.355817948 joules (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Foot-pound (energy); Wikipedia: James Prescott Joule; Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (energy)

Related conversions

See all energy units.