How power converter works
Power — energy per unit time — keeps a different unit in every industry: motors are rated in horsepower, electricity in watts and kilowatts, heating and cooling in BTU per hour, chillers in tons of refrigeration, and European spec sheets in metric horsepower (PS). This converter translates any of the thirteen units into any other.
Every conversion is anchored to the watt using exact definitions: one mechanical horsepower is exactly 550 foot-pounds per second (745.699871582 W), one metric horsepower is exactly 75 kilogram-force meters per second (735.49875 W), one BTU per hour is the International Table BTU (1,055.05585262 J) over exactly 3,600 seconds, and one ton of refrigeration is exactly 12,000 BTU/h. The tool normalizes your value through watts, so both directions of every pair agree.
Results are reported to 12 significant digits, with the intermediate value in watts shown for every conversion so you can check magnitudes at a glance — 1 kW is 3,412.14 BTU/h, one mechanical horsepower is 745.7 W or 1.014 PS, and a 3-ton air conditioner moves heat at 10.55 kW. All math runs in your browser.