Leaving your charger plugged in the wall uses energy, too.

[user 1340]

I wondered how much power my OEM charger would use when plugged in, but not connected or charging my car.

Using my Kill-A-Watt device, I plugged the charger in, but left it disconnected from the Bolt. It registered about 50 watts.

Charging aside (which draws up to 12A or 1,440 watts), if you leave the charger plugged in all the time, you will use about 438 kWHr of energy just to power the charger! That's enough to charge your Bolt over 7 times!

Assuming you charge for about 10 hours per day, ever day, it would only be 255 kWHrs or just over 4 full Bolt charges.

So, I recommend putting the charger on a switched outlet so you can shut it off when not charging.

 

[SparkEVPilot]

I wondered how much power my OEM charger would use when plugged in, but not connected or charging my car.

Using my Kill-A-Watt device, I plugged the charger in, but left it disconnected from the Bolt. It registered about 50 watts.

Charging aside (which draws up to 12A or 1,440 watts), if you leave the charger plugged in all the time, you will use about 438 kWHr of energy just to power the charger! That's enough to charge your Bolt over 7 times!

Assuming you charge for about 10 hours per day, ever day, it would only be 255 kWHrs or just over 4 full Bolt charges.

So, I recommend putting the charger on a switched outlet so you can shut it off when not charging.

How many hours did it take for your Kill-A-Watt to register 0.050 kWh?

 

[user 1340]

How many hours did it take for your Kill-A-Watt to register 0.050 kWh?

Not 0.050 kwhr. 50 watts (0.050 kW). Read what I wrote carefully (had to go back to make sure I didn't make a mistake... Nope.) But it would take one hour.

I'm doing a 24 hour measurement right now and the charger is pulling a constant 50 watts plugged in. It's about 10-12 typical bright LED lamps (or one old-school incandescent light bulb.). That's a lot!

Even though the Kill-A-Watt tool is rated for 15 amps, I bet if I charged my Bolt through it, even at only 12 amps, it would melt. I may try it... when I can watch it.

Electrical units lesson:

Watts and kilowatts are power. Kilowatt-hours is ENERGY. A kilowatt-hour is 3.6 million joules (another unit of electrical energy).

Power is Energy divided by time. Power is a rate. Energy is a total.

Power * Time = Energy

I had solar panels installed about 18 months ago and really learned the value of electricity. We unplugged a ton of little or unused electronic devices, like chargers, DVD players, TVs, computers, etc. Everything plugged in waiting for you to turn it on consumes energy. It adds up. I've lowered my electrical consumption by 30% without changing anything (other than installing a few power strips to shut things off).

 

[sparkyps]

Where I live that is about 15 cents/day of electricity. Not worth the trouble to walk over and unplug it and plug it back in.

Since my car is on the charger an avg of >12 hours/day it really amounts to about $25,/yr or less than a dime a day.

Informative but doesn't meet my personal time vs value trade-off. But worth considering when shopping for a new EVSE, I expect the OpenEVSE based systems use less than 5W.

 

[SparkEVPilot]

How many hours did it take for your Kill-A-Watt to register 0.050 kWh?

Not 0.050 kwhr. 50 watts (0.050 kW). Read what I wrote carefully (had to go back to make sure I didn't make a mistake... Nope.) But it would take one hour.

I'm doing a 24 hour measurement right now and the charger is pulling a constant 50 watts plugged in. It's about 10-12 typical bright LED lamps (or one old-school incandescent light bulb.). That's a lot!

Even though the Kill-A-Watt tool is rated for 15 amps, I bet if I charged my Bolt through it, even at only 12 amps, it would melt. I may try it... when I can watch it.

Electrical units lesson:

Watts and kilowatts are power. Kilowatt-hours is ENERGY. A kilowatt-hour is 3.6 million joules (another unit of electrical energy).

Power is Energy divided by time. Power is a rate. Energy is a total.

Power * Time = Energy

I had solar panels installed about 18 months ago and really learned the value of electricity. We unplugged a ton of little or unused electronic devices, like chargers, DVD players, TVs, computers, etc. Everything plugged in waiting for you to turn it on consumes energy. It adds up. I've lowered my electrical consumption by 30% without changing anything (other than installing a few power strips to shut things off).

Are you using a P4400 Kill-A-Watt meter or a Kill-A-Watt EZ meter? I have both. I plugged my L1 EVSE, that came with my 2014 Spark EV, into my P4400 Kill-A-Watt. The cable was not connected to the car. I set the meter to measure watts and it read 2.5 watts. in 24 hours this would give me 60 watt-hrs or 0.060 kWh per day or about 22 kWh per year. A 50 watt power draw by your unplugged EVSE seems way too high. See if you can find an EV driver with the same EVSE and give that EVSE a try.

 

[user 1340]

Are you using a P4400 Kill-A-Watt meter or a Kill-A-Watt EZ meter? I have both. I plugged my L1 EVSE, that came with my 2014 Spark EV, into my P4400 Kill-A-Watt. The cable was not connected to the car. I set the meter to measure watts and it read 2.5 watts. in 24 hours this would give me 60 watt-hrs or 0.060 kWh per day or about 22 kWh per year. A 50 watt power draw by your unplugged EVSE seems way too high. See if you can find an EV driver with the same EVSE and give that EVSE a try.

I can only tell you what my KAW is measuring. It is The P3 P4400.
I doubt it is "too high" as you say. If others would like to measure theirs and chime in, they are welcome.

I'll have my 24 hr+ measurement tomorrow. However, it consistently says 45-55 watts on the display with the L1 charger plugged in.

This is the charger the 2017 Bolt (and Volt) comes with.

I do know that this charger is made by Clipper Creek. That's about it.

 

[sparkyps]

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=14173

A Leaf thread about EVSE power consumption in idle mode, all are reporting much, much lower numbers than 50W.

I do find 50W to be rather high considering there should just be some low power microcontroller running while the until is idle.

 

[SparkEVPilot]

Are you using a P4400 Kill-A-Watt meter or a Kill-A-Watt EZ meter? I have both. I plugged my L1 EVSE, that came with my 2014 Spark EV, into my P4400 Kill-A-Watt. The cable was not connected to the car. I set the meter to measure watts and it read 2.5 watts. in 24 hours this would give me 60 watt-hrs or 0.060 kWh per day or about 22 kWh per year. A 50 watt power draw by your unplugged EVSE seems way too high. See if you can find an EV driver with the same EVSE and give that EVSE a try.

I can only tell you what my KAW is measuring. It is The P3 P4400.
I doubt it is "too high" as you say. If others would like to measure theirs and chime in, they are welcome.

I'll have my 24 hr+ measurement tomorrow. However, it consistently says 45-55 watts on the display with the L1 charger plugged in.

This is the charger the 2017 Bolt (and Volt) comes with.

I do know that this charger is made by Clipper Creek. That's about it.

The L1 EVSE supplied with both my 2014 and 2015 Spark EV is manufactured by Voltec. It would be interesting to see what other Bolt owners are experiencing. 50 watt standby power means your EVSE would consume 1200 watts per 24-hour day and give nothing in return. If you know someone who has a Spark EV or Volt, see if he/she will let you run the same test on the L1 EVSE supplied with their car.

 

[winterescape]

View attachment IMG_20170626_103751921.jpg

Kill-A-Watt meters are extremely useful but notoriously inaccurate for very low power devices that enter sleep or low power mode. These type of devices sip a little power from the line periodically to maintain readiness and the Kill-A-Watt assumes that it draws that power continuously. In reality it draws this power for very short bursts.

Attached is a lab grade measurement of my Bolt OEM charger attached to the line with no load. In reality the charger draws a small load of 1.54 W from the line when not charging.

Could it be better? yes it could. Is it 50W, no it is not...

 

[user 1340]

I'll trust your equipment before I trust a KAW meter.

Thanks for your precise answer.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

::deleted::