Volt-Ampere

Often called Volt Amp for short; or abbreviated VA. It is the unit of measure for the product of voltage and current in a circuit. VA is sometimes confused with wattage, probably because the common theoretical method to determine wattage is also by calculating the product of volts and amps. And in a purely resistive circuit (or a DC circuit) this same product is also the wattage, but in most practical applications circuit inductance will cause the current to be somewhat out of phase with the voltage causing the actual available wattage for a device to be less.