If you left your computer on 24 hours a day how much money could it cost in a year?

Answer 1

The question is a bit difficult to answer since it depends on many different factors. For example the amount of power your computer consumes (which might vary depending on what it is doing) and how much electricity costs in your area (which might vary between day and night).

I can do an example calculation for my own computer to illustrate. For example my desktop computer has a power adapter for 600 W. Assuming that 24 hours per day I push my computer to its limit and it consumes 600 W all the time. That would equal 0.6 kWh (per hour). So per year that would be (=0.6*24*365) 5256 kWh.

Now the price for 1 kWh in my area (the Netherlands) is about 0.20 euros (it will vary based on which energy provider you use). So the total price per year would be (=0.2*5256) 1051.20 euros.

Note that this is quite high because I assumed I was using 600 W all the time; the average consumption while not doing something very computationally expensive (like playing computer games) will be significantly less.