Cafe Customer Using Laptop Whilst Charging For 4 Hours?

A question I was asked online:

What would you say the average cost is to charge and use whilst charging a laptop in a cafe thats paying business electric rates for 4 hours?

I've tried to work it out but I can't. Just an average. I had a customer in my cafe today who stayed for 4 hours working on her laptop. I wouldn't of thought anything about it prior to the current situation. She bought some breakfast and then a coffee later so I do appreciate her custom, but just wondering how much electricity was used?

My answer: 

The answer to this Question is not straight forward, on average they use no more than 50 Watts or 0.05kWh, however some will use 20 to 100 watts, and dependent upon what the user is doing on the laptop, the usage may increase to 180 Watts or 0.18kWh. 

My energy supplier is increasing my electricity kWh rate to 35.0564p on 1st Oct 2022, therefore if I calculate using an average laptop at 50Watts or 0.05kWh: 

0.05kWh x 35.0564p is 1.75282p per hour, so 4 hours is about 7p

Higher usage laptops at 180Watts:

0.18kWh x 35.0564p is 6.310152p per hour, so 4 hours is just over 25p 

So from 1st Oct it could cost between 7p to 25p 

BUT?!

How much is your electricity per kWh for your business? 

How many tables and seats does your cafe have? 

Does the customer who sits there 4 hours at a time, prevent other paying customers from using your cafe? In other words is your business making a substantial loss of profit due to a shortage of seats?  

Is the customer then plugging other devices into their laptop to charge them via USB leads? 

Is the laptop a high performance gaming laptop? 

Is the laptop user carrying out large downloads? 

Is the laptop user also reliant upon your WiFi, if yes does your WiFi include unlimited downloads? 

The only way to really know is to buy a smart appliance energy monitor, and have the customer plug their laptop into the monitor, which is plugged in to your socket.



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