The POWER function in Excel is used to raise a number to a specified power. The syntax is:

=POWER(number, power)

• number: The base number you want to raise.
• power: The exponent to which the base number is raised.

Example 1: Basic Usage

To calculate 2 raised to the power of 3:

=POWER(2, 3)

This will return 8.

Example 2: Using Cell References

If cell A1 contains the number 5 and cell B1 contains the number 2, you can calculate 5 squared as follows:

=POWER(A1, B1)

This will return 25.

Example 3: Combining with Other Functions

You can combine the POWER function with other functions. For example, to calculate the square root of a number (which is the same as raising it to the power of 0.5):

=POWER(16, 0.5)

This will return 4.

Example 4: Handling Negative Exponents

To calculate 10 raised to the power of -2:

=POWER(10, -2)

This will return 0.01.

Tips:

• The POWER function is equivalent to using the ^ operator. For example, =2^3 is the same as =POWER(2, 3).
• Ensure that the base number and power are valid numeric values to avoid errors.