I remember being bowled over when the MacBook Air was first released. I can’t believe this was way back in 2008. It’s still amazing how such a lightweight and thin laptop can deliver such awesome performance. It can handle anything I’ve thrown at it over the years. If you use one regularly, you’ll be interested in the power consumption. This helps you to know how much electricity it uses and the best way to use one off-grid in a car, vehicle, or remote location.
Below we will discuss and test MacBook Air wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a MacBook Air?
A MacBook Air uses up to 30 watts when charging.
The power consumption does vary slightly depending on what task you are performing. The standard charger that comes with your Air is rated to 30W, so this is the maximum it will draw. You will find it uses less power than this, 15W – 20W, when fully charged.
You can also increase the power of your MacBook Air charger with 45W and higher versions available. This can increase the charging speed and the maximum wattage.
How to Find Out Your MacBook Air Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a MacBook Air.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the MacBook Air’s charger specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the charger. 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 MacBook Air to get instant information.
I used one to test a MacBook Air which gave a live reading of 29.7W when charging.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your MacBook Air adapter you can use this to find the maximum watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
MacBook Air Wattage Test
Let’s take a look at a test of different chargers and how many watts they use to charge your device.
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different MacBook Air chargers. So you should take the time to check your own equipment.
How Much Electricity Does a MacBook Air Use?
You can use MacBook Air wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your MacBook Air.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour (Wh) is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a MacBook Air drawing 30W would use 30Wh when charging for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 30W MacBook Air charger running for 1 hour uses 0.03kWh.
In reality, you might charge a MacBook Air for 1 hour a day. This means a MacBook Air uses about 30Wh or 0.03kWh electricity a day. That’s 0.9kWh a month and 11kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.004 a day or $1.64 a year to charge your MacBook Air for 1 hour every day.
Using a MacBook Air Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your MacBook Air in an off-grid situation like a car, power outage, RV, boat, or semi-truck, the information above is important. You can accurately select equipment that can deliver enough power.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to produce AC electricity.
To make sure your MacBook Air charges 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 MacBook Air. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To charge your MacBook Air, you will need at least 75W of power capacity. This will give you enough with most MacBook Airs, plus it’s the smallest size you’ll find an inverter to use in a vehicle.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to charge the MacBook Air for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use upto about 30Wh electricity for 1 hours charging. This is the equivalent to 2.5Ah on a 12V battery.
You should also be able to find the total battery capacity of your MacBook Air in the specification. This number will tell you how many Wh it takes to fully charge the device.
How Many Watts Does a MacBook Air Use Summary
I hope you now understand how many watts a MacBook Air uses to recharge.
It’s quite amazing how such powerful devices use so little power. We can run our whole lives from a wafer-thin apple laptop and it only costs a couple of dollars in electricity. That’s great news. It even means you can get yourself a small car inverter to stay juiced up on the road. Plus if you’re keen for quicker charging speeds, you can always upgrade the power with an aftermarket charger.
