Home Calculate Electrical Usage Articles About

Electricity usage of a Printer

An average ink-jet which is designed for home use will typically use 30 to 50 watts when it is printing, in standby mode most printers will draw around 3 to 5 watts of power. Commercial printers which are used in an office will draw 30 to 50 watts on standby and 300 to 500 watts when printing.

Certain printers and specifically laser printers may consume significantly more, depending on design and if a halogen lamp is used for the fuser. This may significantly increase wattage, and is not recommended to connect to a UPS (uninterruptible power supply).

Click calculate to find the energy consumption of a home printer using 40 Watts for 15 minutes a day @ $0.10 per kWh.

Cost Per Hour:

Cost Per Day:

Cost Per Month:

Cost Per Year:

kWh Per Day:

Hours Used Per Day:

Power Use (Watts):

Price (kWh):

Hours Used Per Day: Enter how many hours the device is being used on average per day, if the power consumption is lower than 1 hour per day enter as a decimal. (For example: 30 minutes per day is 0.5)

Power Use (Watts): Enter the average power consumption of the device in watts.

Price (kWh): Enter the cost you are paying on average per kilowatt hour, our caculators use the default value of 0.10 or 10 cents. To find an exact price check your electricity bill or take a look at Global Electricity Prices.

Use of printers is declining as smartphones and tablets are replacing the need for printing information for reference. To save energy it is best to turn off your printer when it is not being used.