Battery Usage Report - Generate in Windows 8

How to Generate a Battery Usage Report in Windows 8 and 8.1​

   Information

The Windows 8 battery usage report will help you to know more about the usage, health, and life estimates of your system's battery.

This tutorial will show you how to generate a detailed battery usage report for your Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 8.1, or Windows RT 8.1 PC (ex: laptop, Surface, or tablet) that runs on a battery.

   Note

This will not work on a desktop PC.

Here's How:

1. Open a command prompt.

2. In the command prompt, copy and paste the command below, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

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powercfg /batteryreport /output %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\battery_report.html​

   Note

If you use only the red part of the command above, then your battery_report.html file will be saved in whatever folder you have the command prompt opened to. By default, this would be your "C:\Users\(user-name)" folder.

If you like, you could also change the command to specify where you would like the battery_report.html file to be saved to instead.

powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\Full Path\battery_report.html"

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3. Double click/tap on the battery_report.html file on your desktop to open and see your battery usage report in your default web browser (ex: Internet Explorer).

4. This is a copy of my laptop's battery usage report in Internet Explorer as an example of what is reported. (see screenshots below)


The top of the battery usage report will give you general information about your PC as well as if your PC supports connected standby or not.

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The Installed batteries section below gives you detailed information about the battery including the name, serial number, and manufacturer.

• Chemistry = Usually will be LION for Lithium-ion battery.
• Design Capacity = The amount of charge that the battery was designed to hold in mWh (milliwatt hours).
• Full Charge Capacity = The amount of charge that the battery will actually hold.
• Cycle Count = The number of times that the battery has used up 100% of its charge and then recharged, or the result of discharging to 50%, charging to full, then discharging to 50% again. Batteries have a limited amount of cycles to work through before they are considered consumed.

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The Recent usage section below lists the power states (active or suspended) that your system has gone through over the last 3 days (72 hours). You will also see if the power "source" was AC or battery, and the remaining capacity shown as a percentage and mWh.

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The Battery usage section below shows you the date and time in a chart and table for each instance when the battery was drained over the last 3 days (72 hours).

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The Usage history section below show you the history of system usage on AC and battery power.

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The Battery capacity history section below shows you the charge capacity history of the system's batteries. It compares the "Full Charge Capacity" with the "Design Capacity" over a period of time.

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The Battery life estimates section below will help indicate how long you can expect the battery to last at a "full charge capacity" and at "design capacity" based on the observed drains.

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Run a Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to See Available Sleep States on Your Windows 8 PC
• How to Change Power Plan Settings in Windows 8
• How to Generate a Sleep Study Diagnostic Report in Windows 8.1
• How to Generate and View a System Health Report in Windows 8.1
• How to Generate and View a System Performance Report in Windows

 

[theveterans]

I really wish MS would add this feature to Windows 7 SP2 if they decide to make one

 

[bagavan]

I get this error

 

[Brink]

Hello Manjunath,

That error usually means a mistake has been made entering the command. See if entering the command below and press Enter will save the .html file to whatever folder your command prompt is opened to.

powercfg /batteryreport

 

[rainmanva]

great information thanks for posting this!

 

[jupit3r]

very useful, tks a lot!

 

[RZK]

very useful

Kudos

 

[HashebAnzar]

Thanks a lot

 

[adamf]

Doesn't work for me - I get "An unexpected error condition has occurred. Unable to perform operation. You may not have permission to perform this operation." when running from Admin command prompt.

I have checked sfc /scannow and dsim and they report no errors.

Any ideas?

Edit - my screenshot only shows when previewing post for some reason so commands added as text.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>powercfg /batteryreport /output %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\battery_report.html
An unexpected error condition has occurred.  Unable to perform operation.  You may not have permis
sion to perform this operation.
C:\Windows\system32>powercfg /batteryreport
An unexpected error condition has occurred.  Unable to perform operation.  You may not have permis
sion to perform this operation.
C:\Windows\system32>

 

[Brink]

Hello Adam,

As a test, see how it works while signed in to the built-in Administrator account.

Did you move your user profile folder, or play with permissions of it any?

 

[adamf]

I just tried the built in administrator and it is the same. I did a clean install of 8.1 with update last week and haven't changed permissions or moved user folders, no.

I can see the battery percentage OK in the notification area. I was trying to run the report as my laptop is shutting down at (I think) 35%.

 

[Brink]

Usually, you get that error message on a desktop computer.

You could also run an energy report that includes a battery section for some details there.

Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report - Windows 7 Help Forums

For the 35%, double check to see what you have set under Battery in Power Options like below to see what percentage and actions you have set for them. This is what would normally do this.

 

[adamf]

The powercfg -energy works fine it is only the -batteryreport that fails.

I've updated my power plan to sleep not hibernate as I had disabled hibernation as I'm very short of disk space (only having 40GB). Thanks for that - I forgot

 

[visruth]

The powercfg -energy works fine it is only the -batteryreport that fails.

I've updated my power plan to sleep not hibernate as I had disabled hibernation as I'm very short of disk space (only having 40GB). Thanks for that - I forgot

I too forgot to change hibernate to sleep there after moving to SSD

 

[visruth]

It worked for me -

 

[stringjunky]

I've had my Acer Aspire ES1-512 only a week so the battery is pretty good. They've certainly got more efficient; at least double usage time since I got my last computer. It's advertised at 7 hours usage time but the estimate on my report is about 8 1/2hrs. Wonder how long that'll last?

 

[theveterans]

Considering that's a Bay Trail CPU and only 7.5 watt TDP, along with 50 mwh capacity 8 hours should be the norm when doing light tasks.

 

[stringjunky]

Considering that's a Bay Trail CPU and only 7.5 watt TDP, along with 50 mwh capacity 8 hours should be the norm when doing light tasks.

What's Bay Trail? Does that mean it's energy-efficient? I did notice in Task Manager That it will clock down to 0.45GHz and up to 2.55GHz even though it's rated at 2.15GHz.

 

[theveterans]

Bay Trail is code name for Intel Atom and Celeron CPUs for 2013-2014. They're efficient and consume only 7.5 watts under full load. Intel Celeron N2840 - FH8065301903600

My tablet is Intel Atom z3770 at 1.46 GHz boost to 2.39 GHz (Bay Trail) with 30 mWh battery and I get 8 hours of battery with normal browsing.

 

[shamisz]

wow guys ive been wondering how long my surface 2 pro battery lasts had it about a year, i always fully charge and let run down, i thought it was about 4-5hrs i got