Kilowatts to Metric horsepower Converter
Convert Kilowatts (kW) to Metric horsepower (PS) instantly, or use the conversion table below to look up common values.
Kilowatts to Metric horsepower conversion table
| Kilowatts (kW) | Metric horsepower (PS) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.359622 |
| 2 | 2.719243 |
| 3 | 4.078865 |
| 4 | 5.438486 |
| 5 | 6.798108 |
| 10 | 13.596216 |
| 25 | 33.99054 |
| 50 | 67.981081 |
| 100 | 135.962162 |
How to convert Kilowatts to Metric horsepower
1 kW equals 1.359622 PS. Use the converter above for any value, or read the table for common conversions.
PS = kW × 1.3596216173039044 · kW = PS × 0.73549875Multiply a kilowatts figure by 1.359622 to get metric horsepower, or divide it by 0.735499 to go the other way.
Worked examples
- 1 kW= 1.359622 PS
- 5 kW= 6.798108 PS
- 10 kW= 13.596216 PS
- 100 kW= 135.962162 PS
- 500 kW= 679.810809 PS
What these units are
Kilowatts (kW). A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. It is the usual unit for appliance ratings, generators, inverters and household electricity demand.
Metric horsepower (PS). Metric horsepower (PS) is 735.49875 watts, used for vehicle engine ratings across much of Europe and Asia. It is slightly smaller than mechanical horsepower.
Metric power conversions are exact. Check whether a horsepower figure is mechanical or metric before comparing two engines.
Converting Kilowatts to Metric horsepower in practice
Working in kilowatts
Exactly 1,000 watts make one kilowatt, written kW. This is the multiple that electrical equipment ratings use, and it equals one thousand joules of energy transferred per second.
Domestic appliance labels, generator sets, inverters, solar arrays and electric motors are all rated in kilowatts. Household demand and the capacity of a standby generator are usually quoted this way.
Since a kilowatt is a rate and a kilowatt-hour is an amount, multiplying kilowatts by hours of operation yields energy. Steps from watts to kilowatts to megawatts are exact powers of one thousand.
The common mistake is to add kilowatt ratings together and call the total energy use, when the total is only the power drawn at one moment. Consumption requires duration as well.
The kilowatt sits between the watt and the megawatt: appliance labels use watts, generators and inverters use kilowatts, and power stations use megawatts. An engine quoted in kilowatts cannot be compared directly with one quoted in horsepower without converting first.
Checking a kilowatts to metric horsepower conversion
Within the metric units a power conversion is a power of a thousand: watts to kilowatts, kilowatts to megawatts, and back. Those pairs are decimal shifts and a reader can do them without a converter.
Anything involving horsepower is a multiplication by a definition rather than a shift, and there are two definitions. Mechanical horsepower is exactly 745.7 watts and metric horsepower exactly 735.49875 watts, so the same engine carries a larger figure in mechanical horsepower than in metric.
When checking a power conversion, convert to watts first, because every unit in this dimension is defined against the watt and the intermediate value makes the comparison obvious. The trap is comparing a horsepower figure with a kilowatt figure without establishing which horsepower was quoted.
Tanzania reference points
Real quantities, converted into the units on this page.
Tanzania's installed electricity generation capacity
2,881.332 MW = 2,881,332 kW = 3,917,521.273829 PS
EWURA reports 2,842.96 MW on the main grid and 38.372 MW off-grid, with TANESCO holding 92.31% of it. Installed capacity is what the country could generate at once, not what it generates on an average day.
Source: EWURA Fact Sheet — electricity sub-sector (installed capacity) · verified 2026-09-14
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