How Much Electricity Does it Cost to Charge a Smartphone?
Do you know how much electricity it costs to charge a smartphone? If not, this blog post is for you. Smartphone batteries are designed to last about a day on average. But if you’re always on the go, that battery life can be cut down significantly. The best way to keep your phone charged is by using the charger that came with the device or to use powerbanks. I’ll explain the different factors that affect the cost of charging a phone and give some tips on how to save on electricity. So let’s start!
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How Much Electricity Does it Cost to Charge a Smartphone?
So How Much Electricity Does Cost to Charge a SmartPhone? Smartphones use between 2 and 6 watts when charging, but a charger that is left plugged in without the phone can consume up to 0.5 watts! If you charge your phone for 3 hours per day at a 5 Watts charger, it will cost you $0.0020 per day.
If nothing else is plugged in into an outlet but your charger, then the electricity (power) that will be used will be 0.1 – 0.5 watts just for sitting there without anything running through it. Charging up with normal usage can cost less than $1 per year depending on what kind of device you have.
When it comes to energy consumption, the cost of leaving your phone charger plugged in is not very significant. Unplugging a fully charged cell phone saves just 44 cents per year according to energy department.
Energy consumption of a smartphone:
Charging Time: | Charger [Power]: | Cost of charging Smartphone Per Year: |
---|---|---|
3 hours | 5W | $0.55 |
3 hours | 10W | $1.10 |
3 hours | 15W | $1.64 |
It’s well known that charging a tablet costs 0.5p each time it’s charged and a laptop 1.95p each time it goes from 0 – 100%. In other words, you will need to let your friend charge their smartphone 833 times at your home before he owes you one coffee!
Some people get really creative with their chargers by using solar or other sustainable resources like wind turbines to save money.
The Maths Behind How Much It Cost to Charge Your Phone
When you have an iPhone 11, for example (other models will be similar), it turns out that the cost of charging your device comes to a grand total of 55p. It’s a similar story if you have an Android-like Samsung Galaxy S20 with its standard adaptive fast charger and USB-C cable.
The iPhone 11 has a 3110 mAh battery. The power output of the current charger is 5W which means it will take 3 hours to fully charge your phone’s battery from 0% to 100%. So, when you use a 5 W charger for 3 hours to power your iPhone from 0% up to 100%, you will not spend more than 15W of electricity. This can be less than one penny!
If you charge your iPhone 11 every night over 365 days, the bill will be $0.54 yearly, which is not bad at all!
Smartphones are getting more powerful every day with faster processors and bigger screens. I hope that now you know how much energy your smartphone uses. A super-fast 45W charger can give you a 57-minute charge from 0% to 100%, but that would use 42.75 watts of power which is about half an hour at the wall socket and can cost you around 54p per year!
You can use the Power meter to measure the electricity (power) that is needed to charge your phone.
How Much Does it Cost to Charge Your Phone Overnight?
During an overnight charge, the average phone needs 15 to 20 Wh of energy to be charged – that’s enough to power a 60-watt lightbulb for about 4 hours! According to figures published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), in July 2020, one kWh was worth $0.13 on average across some states in US. Keep in mind that 1 kWh equals 1000 Watts, so there is no need for conversion calculations each time you see these units side-by-side.
So, to get the precise calculation, an overnight charge of a smartphone will take an average of 20 Wh energy per day, we multiple that by 1 year (365 days), and we get 7 kWh, which is equal to $0.92 per year. That’s how much will cost you to charge your phone every night for 1 year.
If you want to know How Much Electricity (Power) Does a TV Use, read this article.
How Much Does it Cost to Charge Your Smartphone For a Year?
You might be surprised to find out that your phone, if fully drained and recharged every day for a year (365 days) would use about 8kWh of power. So, if you fully charge your phone for a year, you will use around 8 kWh, where the average price of electricity is $0.13 per kWh in the US, which will cost you $1.04 per year.
How Many Watts Does It Take to Charge a Phone?
Your smartphone does the work of a variety of gadgets, but it doesn’t ask for much in terms of electricity. Forbes took a look into this issue 3 years ago and found that if you fully drained your phone every day, one year would cost about 7 kWh – which is less than $1 per entire year!
Smartphone batteries and chargers did make a big change since Forbe’s test. Some of the phones on the market have 4,000 mAh batteries. iPhones need a higher wattage to charge, but the lower energy consumption of slower chargers will actually save you money in the long run.
Best Portable Powerbanks For Your Phone
Smartphone battery life is a common problem. You can’t always find an outlet or charger when you need one, and it can be frustrating when your phone dies at the worst possible time. But there are ways to make sure that doesn’t happen!
One way is by using a power bank. A power bank is a portable charger for smartphones and other devices like tablets, laptops, etcetera. It stores energy from an external source so that it can charge up your device on the go without needing access to electricity or outlets.
There are many different types of power banks available in all shapes and sizes with varying capacities – some as low as 2000 mAh while others go up to 20,000 mAh (or even more). This way you can make sure that your mobile phone is always charged.
Conclusion
We’ve seen that charging a phone doesn’t consume a lot of energy and that it’s a very small cost that you shouldn’t bother with. I hope you learned something new by reading this article. Smartphones are expensive, and the battery life is not always the best. We all want to use our phones as long as possible without having to worry about how much it costs. Charge your phone in off-peak hours, turn down screen brightness, and avoid running apps that require a lot of power while charging. By using these tips you will extend the battery life on your phone.