Mobile phone charging cost

To work out mobile phone charging cost, we need to find out watts usage and cost of a kilowatt hour (kWh). UK users can find energy prices per kWh by visiting ukpower.co.uk. It's getting little complex. Let me make it simple and easy by discussing few things first.

What is a kilowatt hour (kWh)?

To fully understand device charging cost, first we need to know kilowatt hour (kWh) term. A kilowatt hour (kWh) is a measure of energy that equates to 1,000 watts or 1 kilowatt (kW) of energy being used for one hour. The performance of every electrical household appliance is measured in watts, and you can find the wattage of any item on its packaging or label.

Visit apple.com to find out watts usage on iPhones and samsung.com for Samsung phones. According to today's rate, average cost of electricity kilowatt hour (kWh) in the UK is 20.50p.

How to calculate cost of charging a mobile phone

It is a simple math to calculate the cost of charging a mobile phone, simply multiply the wattage by the number of hours, then divide the result by 1,000 - it's that simple.

Here is an example, if you have a 150W desktop computer and use it for 10 hours, you will have spent 1.5 kWh running this device for that period, don't believe ? check below calculation :

150 * 10 = 1,500 / 1000 = 1.5

150(Watts) multiplied by 10(hours) = 1,500, then 1,500 divided by 1,000 = 1.5 kWh

iPhone charging cost in the UK

For experiment purpose, we used iPhone 12 to calculate charging cost in the UK. The standard 5W adapter was used in the experiment and it took almost 3.5 hours to charge fully from 0% to 100%. Let's jump into the calculation :

(5W * 3.5 Hours) / 1,000 = 0.0175 kWh * 20.50P = 0.35 (little more than 1/3 of 1P / charge). Therefore it will cost you as little as 1P to fully charge your iPhone 3 times.

Yearly iPhone charging cost in the UK

According to the above calculation, it will cost you around £1.27 in the UK to charge your phone for a whole year.

Check this article to find out How to increase battery life on iPhone 12


       

Cost of charging Samsung phone

The above formula can be used to calculate the cost of charging any electronics appliances. However, to make you understand better, charging cost of Samsung Galaxy S21 is shown below :

Model name	Charger Wattage	Cost (UK) @ 20.50P
Samsung Galaxy S21	25W	0.76 / charge - almost 3 quarter of a penny (yearly £2.80)

According to the above calculation, charging your Samsung Galaxy S21 over a whole year will cost you more than iPhone 12.

I hope it's clear to you now, how much it will cost to charge a mobile phone. Also hope, using simple formula mentioned in this post, you will be able to calculate the cost of using any electronics appliances.