On this page, you will find out how many watts a cooler uses.
Being able to keep drinks cool on a hot summer’s day is a game changer. Whether you’re in your backyard, on a road trip, or at the beach, a cool box keeps you refreshed all day. What’s awesome, is you can now get electric 12V cool boxes to act as a refrigerator so you don’t have to worry about melting ice. You can even run these via a solar panel! If you are looking at ways to keep your cooler running for long periods, you’ll need to know the power consumption.
Below we will discuss and test electric cooler wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is an Electric Cooler?
The average electric cooler uses between 30 and 80 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your electric cooler. For example, a smaller car-sized cool box uses about 30 watts while large 40+ liter versions use over 70 watts.
The reason for varying wattage is simply because a bigger cooler will need to work harder to keep temperatures low. This means it has larger components to operate.
Overall, these are relatively low-powered appliances that you can easily run on a 12V battery. They have a lower power consumption and are quieter than a traditional fridge.
How to Find Out Your Electric Cooler Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of an electric cooler.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the electric cooler’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your electric cooler to get instant information.
I used one to test a 24 quart electric cooler which gave a live reading of 29.8W after 30 minutes of operation.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your electric cooler you can use this to find the running watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Electric Cooler Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts an electric cooler draws. Below is a collection of modern electric coolers with their listed power ratings.
| Electric Cooler Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Wagan Fridge/Warmer 6 quart | 48 |
| Wagan Fridge/Warmer 24 litre | 40 |
| Euhomy 12 Volt Refrigerator | 45 |
| Koolatron Krusader P85 Thermoelectric | 48 |
| K-box Electric Cooler | 72 |
| Change Moore Electric Cooler | 60 |
| AstroAI Electric Cooler 26 Quarts | 52 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different electric coolers. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does an Electric Cooler Use?
You can use electric cooler wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your electric cooler.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a cooler drawing 70W would use 70Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 70W electric cooler running for 1 hour uses 0.07kWh.
In reality, you use an electric cooler for 8 hours on a day trip. This means an electric cooler uses about 560Wh or 0.56kWh electricity a day.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.1 an hour to keep your drinks cold!
Using an Electric Cooler Off-Grid
It is likely you will want to run your cooler off-grid in a car, RV, or during a power outage. Knowing the wattage enables you to ensure you have a large enough electricity supply.
You can either use a power inverter, solar panel, or portable power station to produce electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your electric cooler. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To cool your food and drink, you will need at least 100W of power capacity. Although, as you will be running for hours at a time, you could consider going to 150W or more to reduce strain, wear, and tear on your equipment.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the electric cooler for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use a maximum of 70Wh electricity an hour. This is the equivalent to 5.83Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Cooler Use Summary
I hope you now understand how many watts a cooler uses.
Truth is: coolers are designed to be used in an efficient manner away from a connection to the mains grid. The majority can run off a 12V power source too. This means you can hook them up to batteries or vehicles without needing to make a DC to AC conversion. The appliance will be much easier to transport and run than a normal refrigerator.
