Want to see your cctv security camera power consumption? Enter your wattage, how many hours a day you run it and what you pay per kWh as your electricity rate, then hit Calculate to get the monthly cost and kWh used on your bill. Those same results also cover cctv security camera electricity consumption. Also see how much electricity does a butter maker use.
Wondering how much CCTV security camera electricity consumption will add to your utility bill? The honest answer is far less than most people fear: a typical security camera draws only a few watts, and an entire home system usually costs less to run than a single refrigerator. This guide shows you how to estimate the power usage of every camera, recorder and network device in your setup, and what you can do to trim the energy costs.
Most modern security cameras draw between roughly 2 and 15 watts while running, and the exact wattage depends on the model, the resolution and which features are active at that moment. A small indoor camera sits near the bottom of that range, while an outdoor 4K model with a spotlight sits near the top. That makes security camera power consumption comparable to a single LED light bulb left on around the clock. Compare with iron power consumption.
A camera's label usually lists a power adapter rating, and that number is a ceiling rather than a measurement. A camera sold with a 12-watt adapter may average only 5 to 7 watts, so use the wattage rating as a safe upper limit and not as the true draw. Think of it as the maximum power the supply can deliver, not what your camera pulls every second.
The table below summarizes the typical operating range of each common surveillance camera type. These are ballpark figures for planning, so check your own model's datasheet for the real value.
| Camera or device | Typical power draw | What changes it |
|---|---|---|
| Indoor Wi-Fi camera | 2 to 5 watts | Resolution and streaming |
| Outdoor camera with spotlight | 6 to 12 watts | Night vision and spotlight use |
| PoE camera | 4 to 12 watts | Power over Ethernet class and features |
| PTZ camera | 8 to 20 watts | Motors during pan, tilt and zoom |
| Floodlight camera | Up to about 25 watts | White light active |
| NVR or DVR | 15 to 60 watts | Number of hard drives and PoE ports |
You only need three things to estimate security camera energy consumption: the wattage, the hours of operation per day, and your electricity rate. If your camera lists volts and amps instead of watts, multiply them first:
$$\text{Watts} = \text{Volts} \times \text{Amps}$$
Then convert watts into kilowatt-hours (kWh), the unit your utility uses on the bill:
$$\text{Daily energy use (kWh)} = \frac{\text{Watts} \times \text{Hours per day}}{1{,}000}$$
Finally, multiply by your electricity rate to get the cost:
$$\text{Cost} = \text{kWh} \times \text{Electricity rate}$$
Say you run six PoE cameras that average 6.4 watts each, an NVR that draws 24 watts with its hard drive spinning, and a small PoE switch and router that together use 7 watts. Your electricity rate is $0.17 per kWh and everything runs 24 hours per day.
So the whole setup costs roughly the price of two cups of coffee each month, and the cameras alone account for just over half of the total power.
If you only want to price the cameras themselves, here is what each count of 6.4-watt cameras uses at the same $0.17 rate when running continuously. The NVR, switch and router come on top.
| Cameras | Total wattage | Monthly energy | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 camera | 6.4 W | 4.61 kWh | $0.78 |
| 4 cameras | 25.6 W | 18.43 kWh | $3.13 |
| 6 cameras | 38.4 W | 27.65 kWh | $4.70 |
| 8 cameras | 51.2 W | 36.86 kWh | $6.27 |
Two cameras that look identical can differ noticeably in camera power consumption once their features and settings diverge. These are the factors that matter most.
Night vision is the biggest reason a camera draws more after dark. Infrared mode switches on the IR LEDs, which can add a couple of watts. A camera averaging 5.2 W by day and 8.1 W at night over twelve hours each lands near 6.65 W across the whole day, which is why a single flat wattage figure never tells the full story. A spotlight or color night vision pushes it higher still.
Higher resolution means more processing and more data to encode. A 1080p camera needs less power than a 4K camera, and an 8MP model needs more than either, because the sensor, processor and video quality settings all work harder. The gap is modest on modern hardware, but it grows when you multiply it across many cameras.
A PTZ (pan tilt zoom) camera spikes whenever its motors move. AI detection and motion sensors add a small processing load, and a floodlight or spotlight can triple a camera's draw while lit. These features only draw extra power while active, so their real-world impact depends on how often they trigger.
A wireless camera on Wi-Fi still needs electricity for its radio, and constant streaming uses more than occasional uploads. A battery-powered model enters sleep mode between events and relies on a rechargeable pack, so it draws little from the wall but needs periodic charging. A solar-powered camera with small solar panels can cut grid use close to zero in sunny climates. A wired indoor camera and an outdoor camera both draw continuous mains power, though the outdoor one works harder in extreme temperatures.
With Power over Ethernet, a single ethernet cable carries both data and electricity from the recorder or a PoE switch to the camera. That makes a PoE camera tidy to install, but it does not make it free: the power still comes from the NVR or switch, so it shows up in that device's draw. A PoE camera rated for 15 W at full load rarely pulls that much in daily use, and the label describes the class, not the average.
Compared with a Wi-Fi unit that needs its own power adapter, a PoE camera also avoids a separate supply, which removes one small source of conversion loss. When you add up the PoE switch, router and other networking equipment, expect a few extra watts on top of the cameras.
An NVR (network video recorder) or DVR (digital video recorder) is usually the single hungriest part of a CCTV system. It runs its own board and one or more hard drives, and a PoE NVR also feeds electricity to every connected camera. A simple way to estimate a PoE recorder setup is:
$$\text{System power} = \text{NVR board} + \text{Hard drive(s)} + \text{PoE cameras}$$
A DVR paired with analog cameras works differently: each analog unit is powered from the recorder or its own supply, and the recorder handles the encoding. In both cases, the recorder's adapter rating shows the maximum power it can supply, not what it draws in practice. Some NVR menus even show real-time PoE draw per camera, which beats guessing from labels.
Where footage is stored also matters. Local storage on an SD card or hard drive keeps the work inside your security camera system, while cloud storage keeps uploading footage and usually keeps the camera's radio busy. Neither is dramatically different for cost, but a camera that records to an SD card avoids the extra network traffic. A CCTV setup with continuous recording to several drives will always use more than one that records to a single card.
Planning a security upgrade is easier when you size the whole security system around real loads. An 8-camera layout is a popular home security choice, and with multiple cameras the biggest security decision is the recording mode. Security footage written 24/7 keeps every camera and drive busy, while event-based recording lets the recorder rest and trims your electricity usage. Each security camera on a long cable run also loses a little voltage along the way, so use quality cables, size the power supply for the full security load, and keep the recorder close to the cameras it serves.
Monitoring and storage choices shift the energy usage of the system as well. If you watch an IP camera feed on your phone, a camera that streams to the cloud keeps its radio busy, while SD cards inside each camera keep clips on the device and add almost nothing to your electric bill.
Compared with household appliances, even a larger set of cctv security cameras has a power usage far below a clothes dryer. The CCTV camera power consumption of the whole setup is dominated by the recorder, so better energy efficiency in the recorder's power conversion saves more than shaving a watt off one lens, and that efficiency gain applies to every security feed it records for your security setup. CCTV camera energy consumption also rises in a cold outdoor environment when a housing heater switches on, and surveillance cameras on long wiring runs draw a little more to cover losses.
For most homeowners, the answer is no. Even a full 24/7 security system uses less electricity than an air conditioner, a space heater or a refrigerator, and often less than a gaming PC left on standby. A business that runs a dozen cameras and a recorder will see a larger line item, but the saving on theft, shrinkage and even insurance premiums usually outweighs the power cost. For a typical home security setup, the monthly spend is single digits.
Where the energy bill does matter is in larger sites: a warehouse with thirty cameras, floodlights and a rack of recorders is running a serious electrical load, and there it pays to compare energy-efficient models carefully before installation. Because the total load is so small, a portable power station can also act as a backup during power outages: a 300-watt unit covers a 69-watt system for several hours, so your system's wattage decides how long it lasts.
You do not need to give up coverage to lower power consumption of security cameras. These changes help most:
Measure before you optimize. A plug-in watt meter on the NVR and a few cameras gives you real numbers in an afternoon, so you can see whether the recorder or the cameras deserve your attention first.
The power consumption of CCTV is small, predictable and easy to calculate once you know the wattage of each part. Add up the cameras, the recorder and the network gear, convert to kWh, and multiply by your rate. For a six-camera home setup like the one above, that is roughly $103 a year, a modest price for round-the-clock surveillance. Treat the label as a ceiling, measure when accuracy counts, and use the savings tips so your CCTV security camera electricity consumption stays as low as the coverage allows. Also see cable modem power consumption.