The installation was expected to generate about 9 gigawatt hour of electricity annually. This compares to a global solar power installation of 100 Gigawatt in 2017. As of 2016, APS has available one gigawatt of solar generating capacity. Energy consumption in Tonga is projected to reach around 66 gigawatt hours by 2020. It has a nameplate capacity of just over 1 gigawatt of generation. There have been several proposals for gigawatt size, very-large-scale solar power plants. The lasers would have to operate for years continuously at gigawatt strength. The gigawatt size projects would have been arrays of standard-sized single plants. They actively expanded their capacity and turned themselves into gigawatt GW players. Other SI prefixes are sometimes used, for example "gigawatt electrical" (GW).