Watts are power, Watt-hours or Joules are energy. 50 megawatts (MW) of power is (perhaps obviously) able to supply 50 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy every hour

Watts are power, Watt-hours or Joules are energy. 50 megawatts (MW) of power is (perhaps obviously) able to supply 50 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy every hour. According to a google search, the average US residential customer consumes 886kWh (0.9MWh) of energy per month. 50MW -> approximately 36.5GWh / month 36.5GWh / (886kWh/home) -> 41196 homes So, about 42,000 homes worth of power could be supplied each month in theory, but there are a lot of asterisks on that. (One example of an asterisk: residential load factors are really low. Another quick google search suggests Phoenix, AZ homes have a load factor of 33%, so 50MW might only be good for 16,000 homes if you want to avoid blackouts. There are other factors that would affect the number further, but 16k is probably a good approximation.)