Energy Converter

Convert kilowatt-hours, BTU, therms, joules, calories and food Calories, foot-pounds and electronvolts.

Decimals, fractions (3 1/2) and e-notation (1.5e6) all work.
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How to Convert Energy Units

All energy units reduce to joules. A watt-hour is one watt for one hour, or 3,600 J, and a kWh is 3.6 million J. The BTU used here is the International Table BTU, 1,055.056 J.

BTU = kWh × 3,412.14   kJ = kcal × 4.184   kWh = therms × 29.3001

Worked Example

Common Conversions

FromEquals
1 kWh3,412.142 BTU
1 BTU0.0002930711 kWh
1 kcal4.184 kJ
1 kJ0.2390057 kcal
1 thm29.30011 kWh
1 J0.2390057 cal
1 ft·lbf1.355818 J

Unit Definitions

UnitEqualsExact?
Joules (J)1 JExact
Kilojoules (kJ)1,000 JExact
Megajoules (MJ)1,000,000 JExact
Calories (small) (cal)4.184 JExact
Kilocalories (food Calories) (kcal)4,184 JExact
Watt-hours (Wh)3,600 JExact
Kilowatt-hours (kWh)3,600,000 JExact
BTU (IT) (BTU)1,055.055853 JExact
Thousand BTU (MBtu)1,055,055.852999999886 JExact
Therms (US) (thm)105,480,400 JExact
Foot-pounds (ft·lbf)1.355817948 JExact
Electronvolts (eV)1.602176634 × 10⁻¹⁹ JExact
Ergs (erg)1 × 10⁻⁷ JExact

Factors follow NIST Special Publication 811, Appendix B. "Exact" means the unit is defined as that value; results are rounded only for display.

Tips

Food labels' "Calories" are kilocalories. The calorie here is the thermochemical calorie (4.184 J); the older International Table calorie is 4.1868 J, a 0.07% difference. The US therm is 100,000 BTU (EEC therm definition, 105.4804 MJ).