odd that they didn't use the metric systems larger values like terrawatts or jigawatts. did they turn american? lol

Might be an artifact of Mandarin where large numbers are grouped by increments of ten thousand, whereas English groups by increments of one thousand. Specifically, English has distinct words for every three decimal places with thousand, million, billion, trillion while Mandarin uses 万 (wàn) for ten thousand, 亿 (yì) for one hundred million (ten thousand 万), and then continues with units that are each ten thousand times the previous one.

So, the grouping explains why the number is 135 million since 1.35亿 = 135 million, but the unit choice likely comes from a common Chinese convention where in Mandarin, large power capacities are frequently expressed using 千瓦 (kilowatts) with large-number multipliers like 万 or 亿, e.g., 亿千瓦 (hundred-million kilowatts), rather than adopting the SI prefix "吉瓦" (gigawatt). So the original Mandarin likely read 1.35亿千瓦 and was translated literally as 135 million kilowatts.

that's neat; it sort of reminds of me of the way that the maya counted days

also, thanks for making me aware.

No prob, it was a fun discovery in my Mandarin learning journey.