MWe versus MWt

The distinction between a reactor's electrical output, MWe (megawatts electric), and its thermal output, MWt or MW(th) (megawatts of heat produced by the core). For a conventional steam-cycle plant, electrical output is typically about a third of thermal output, because most heat engines cannot convert all their heat into electricity. Quoting a design's thermal rating where a reader expects an electrical one inflates the apparent size of a reactor without stating anything false, so it is worth checking which figure a headline is using, especially for microreactors, several of which developers describe in MWt rather than MWe.

Vocabulary id

concept:mwe-vs-mwt

Scheme

Concepts

Back to the glossary.