Kilowatts to Poncelets (kW to poncelet)

1 kilowatt equals 1.019716213 poncelets (rounded).

How to convert kilowatts to poncelets

To convert kilowatts to poncelets, multiply the number of kilowatts by 1.019716213. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply poncelets by 0.980665.

poncelets = kilowatts × 1.019716213

Example: 10 kilowatts = 10.19716213 poncelets.

Several different horsepower units exist. This site lists mechanical (745.7 W), metric (735.5 W) and electrical (746 W) horsepower separately.

About these units

Kilowatt (kW)

Metric (SI)Current unit

1,000 watts. Used for the power of motors, cars and household appliances.

A kilowatt is simply the watt with the SI prefix kilo, meaning a thousand, attached. The watt was adopted into the SI in 1960 and is small next to machinery, since an incandescent night light uses about 4 W, so the thousand-watt multiple suits engines, electric motors, tools and heaters. For readers used to older units, one kilowatt is roughly 1.34 horsepower.

Small electric heaters with a single element can use about 1 kW, and a domestic electric kettle or microwave oven draws a similar amount. The average household in the United States uses about 1 kW of electric power over time. On a clear midday near the equator, a square meter of Earth's surface receives about 1 kW of sunlight. Do not confuse the kilowatt with the kilowatt-hour on an electricity bill: the first is a rate, the second is the energy used by running one kilowatt for an hour, which equals 3,600,000 watt-seconds.

1 kilowatt = 1,000 watts (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Kilowatt; Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (power); BIPM: SI prefixes

Poncelet (poncelet)

French (Ancien Régime)Historical unit (no longer in standard use)

Exactly 980.665 watts: 100 kilogram-force meters per second. A 19th-century French unit named after the engineer Jean-Victor Poncelet.

Engineers in 19th-century France measured machine output in kilogram-force metres per second, and the poncelet gave a round figure to that practice: the power needed to raise a 100 kilogram mass at one metre per second. The name honours Jean-Victor Poncelet, a military engineer and mathematician who taught mechanics at Metz from 1825 and later held a chair at the Sorbonne. He is known for improving the undershot water wheel with curved blades, described in a memoir of 1827.

The unit was meant for large installations such as water wheels and turbines, where horsepower-sized numbers were awkward. At 100 kgf·m/s it equals 980.665 watts using standard gravity, which is about 1.315 imperial horsepower. It is exactly four thirds of the metric horsepower (cheval-vapeur, 75 kgf·m/s), and that smaller unit replaced it in everyday use. Wikipedia cites Cardarelli's encyclopaedia of units for the naming and gives little more history.

Today the poncelet is only a historical curiosity. In the SI it is simply a little under one kilowatt.

1 poncelet = 980.665 watts (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Poncelet (unit); Wikipedia: Horsepower (metric horsepower); Wikipedia: Jean-Victor Poncelet

Related conversions

See all power units.