How much power does iPhone 12 fast charge consume in a year? The actual measurement was unexpected!

From 2007 to now, Apple’s iPhone has been with us for 13 years. The screen size of the iPhone has gone through several iterations. The battery capacity has also increased from the most basic 1400mAh to 3969mAh. The charging power has experienced a dimensional leap from 5W-12W-18W. It can be seen that Apple has increased battery capacity and charging power. Very cautious.

Specifically speaking of the latest iPhone 12 series, iPhone 12 mini battery capacity is 2227mAh, iPhone 12 battery capacity is 2851mAh, iPhone 12 Pro battery capacity is 2815mAh, and iPhone 12 Pro Max is 3687mAh.

In terms of charging speed, all three super-large cups support 20W PD fast charging. In our compatibility test, the peak power can even reach 23W. The mini power is slightly lower, generally around 14W.

Compared with the previous series of 18W fast charging, the iPhone 12 has been upgraded to 20W this year, although a new market has been activated, but the speed experience is not much improved.

It is worth mentioning that the iPhone 12 series mobile phones have cancelled the standard charger for the first time. The reason is that there are many old chargers in the user's home. The cancellation is beneficial to environmental protection.

There are different opinions at this time, but environmental protection is always a good thing (non-scrubbing). Some environmentalists even raised another question-how much power does the iPhone 12 consume in a year when using fast charging? This article briefly talks about this issue.

Conversion efficiency and standby power consumption

How much power does iPhone 12 consume in a year with fast charging? Let's clarify this problem first. First of all, fast charging and slow charging are the difference in charging speed, which has little effect on power consumption.

Secondly, under normal circumstances, we use a 20W PD charger to charge the iPhone 12.

Finally, the number of recharges in a year is calculated according to the habit of most people once a day. In other words, this problem can be approximated by calculating the power consumption of iPhone 12 on a single charge.

Before calculating, let's first understand the two key data of the charger-conversion efficiency and standby power consumption. With these two data, we can more accurately calculate the power consumption of the mobile phone in one year.

Because the mobile phone is charged through the charger, there will be some waste between conversions, and most of the time the charger is empty on the socket, so these two data should be considered.

Conversion efficiency

The charger is essentially a conversion device, and there will be losses in the process, which will be emitted in the form of heat. Conversion efficiency refers to the ratio of the output power of the charger to the input power, that is, the utilization efficiency of electric energy. The higher the conversion efficiency, the more power saving.

The power supply standard in my country is 220V 50Hz, and the Apple 20W PD charger has been tested for conversion efficiency under 220V 50Hz AC input. The test results are as follows:

The output power of the charger in each voltage range is fully drawn for testing, including 9V2.22A, 5V3A, the input power of the AC end of the power strip and the output power of the USB end are measured, and the conversion efficiency of the charger can be obtained by calculation. 89.65%, 87.37%.

In other words, the conversion efficiency of the iPhone 12 using a 20W charger at the power end is about 90%.

Standby power consumption

After a power meter test, the no-load power consumption of Apple’s 20W PD charger at 220V 50Hz is 0.038W. After conversion, the power consumption per day is 0.038W*24h=0.912W·h, and the power consumption per year is 0.912*365/ 1000=0.33kW·h.

If the market price of electricity is 0.6 yuan/kW·h, the no-load power consumption of the charger is about 0.19 yuan a year.

Apple 20W PD charger

Apple’s 20W PD charger was originally the standard charger for the 2020 iPad Air 4. It will be sold separately after the release of the iPhone 12 at a price of 149 yuan.

This new product continues the style of Apple’s 18W PD fast charging. It uses fixed pins, the main shell is white painted glossy, and the input and output end faces are light gray. The charger is a pure PD output. The charger does not support other fast charging protocols. It supports two fixed voltage outputs of 5V3A / 9V2.22A, with a maximum output of 20W.

The reason for choosing Apple’s 20W PD for calculation is that on the one hand, the official product is trustworthy, and on the other hand, the third-party charger is uneven and avoids advertising suspicions.

iPhone 12 charging the whole process

Using Apple’s 20W charger to charge iPhone 12, the whole process takes about 1 hour and 41 minutes, and the charger end needs to output about 14W·h.

Using the 90% conversion efficiency we measured above, the iPhone 12 consumes about 15.5W·h for a fast charge. Then, according to the usual practice, the iPhone 12 consumes about 15.5Wh*365=5.7kW· h, or 5.7 kWh of electricity, if the market price of electricity is 0.6 yuan/kW·h, the iPhone 12 consumes about 3.42 yuan a year.

To sum up

The iPhone 12 consumes about 5.7 kWh a year, plus the 0.33 kWh that the charger consumes a year without load, which means a total of about 6 kWh, which is less than four yuan. Isn't it a little unexpected?

In addition, the iPhone 12 series supports MagSafe magnetic wireless charging. If wireless charging is used, the power consumption may be a bit more due to conversion efficiency, but it is not much more. If you are interested, we will discuss it.