Clean Energy Charging is a new setting introduced by Apple in iOS 16.1 designed to help your iPhone charge with cleaner energy sources.
When turned on, iOS charges the iPhone battery only when the grid uses cleaner energy sources, such as solar or wind power. Apple says Clean Energy Charging helps reduce your electricity bill and carbon footprint.
This feature requires additional location settings to be enabled, such as important locations. You can turn off clean energy charging if it’s not available in your area. This may enhance your privacy. Here’s how.
iOS 16 adds new iPhone charging settings
Clean Energy Charging works in the background along with Optimized Battery Charging (another battery-related feature in iOS that learns your charging habits).
When you connect your iPhone to a charger, iOS automatically downloads carbon footprint projections in the background and finds nearby energy grids based on your device’s location.
Once you get this forecast from your local load balancing agency, iOS will automatically get the information it needs to limit charging and reduce carbon-emitting power.
How iOS 16 clean energy charging works
Apple designed Clean Energy Charging to work only in the most frequently visited locations, such as home, work, and places where you “spend the most time and regularly charge your iPhone for extended periods of time.”
According to Apple’s support documentation, Clean Energy Charging doesn’t work “when your charging habits change or when you’re in a new location,” such as when you’re traveling.
To help people make climate-friendly choices and enable clean energy charging, Apple has joined the CoolClimate Network, a research partnership with the University of California, Berkeley.
Three settings required for clean energy charging
Three specific location settings must be turned on for clean energy charging to work. This is because iOS requires specific location information to determine when the phone is actually charging in a supported location. Here’s how to make sure these extra settings are turned on:
on your iPhone Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and, location services Toggle turned on. Then scroll to the bottom of this screen and System servicethen check that System customization is turned on.
As a final step, important place on the same screen, important place The toggle is also on.
Privacy advocates can rest assured that locations used for Clean Energy Charging and other charging features are not uploaded to Apple! may be allowed, but the feature may not work as expected or not at all.
Is clean energy charging available in my country?
At the time of this writing, clean energy charging is only available in the US. If you live elsewhere, you may not see the clean energy charging switch in the Settings app (this tells you that clean energy charging is not supported in your country). Keep an eye on this space as we will update the article when the feature is expanded to other countries.
Who Should Use Clean Energy Charging?
Don’t turn on clean energy charging if it’s not available in your country or if your local grid doesn’t support sending carbon emission forecasts. This feature currently works only in the United States.
Are you the type of person who wants your iPhone to charge reliably to 100% whenever it’s plugged in? If so, don’t use Optimized Battery Charging and Clean Energy Charging.
Optimized battery charging and clean energy charging
Don’t confuse clean energy charging with optimized battery charging. If you want to learn more about the latter, feel free to read our dedicated tutorial that goes into more detail about optimized battery charging and how it works.
Simply put, optimized battery charging is one way to maintain the health of your iPhone’s battery and extend the life of your device by learning from your charging routine to charge above 80%. Designed to prevent excessive stress on the battery.
If your iPhone is waiting for more than 80% charge, you know Optimized Battery Charging is enabled. There’s nothing worse than hopping on a plane or attending an important meeting to find that your iPhone battery is half dead or stuck at 80%.
If you’re feeling guilty about turning off clean energy charging, Apple’s Product Environmental Report says that just 15% of the iPhone 14 Pro’s lifetime emissions are actually from using the phone. In fact, you can probably find some solace.
How to turn off clean energy charging on iPhone
After updating or setting up your iPhone to iOS 16.1, clean energy charging will be turned on by default. To turn off this feature, [設定]>[バッテリー]>[バッテリーの状態と充電]and to set clean energy charging Switch to the off position.Then select erase Also turn off until tomorrowdepending on your preference, when prompted.
When clean energy charging is turned off, iPhone continues to charge even when grid demand is high and clean energy is not available.
How to override clean energy charging
When the clean energy charging setting is turned on, your iPhone may display a notification on the lock screen that charging has been temporarily suspended until cleaner power becomes available again.
To disable prompts and resume the charging process, long press the notification and tap charge now From the notification banner.
Greener iPhone charging becomes a reality
Anything that helps reduce our carbon footprint is good for the planet and humanity. However, you need to decide if clean energy charging is suitable for your typical iPhone usage scenarios.
Apple designed this feature with the explicit goal of reducing our customers’ carbon footprint in mind. So it’s on by default.
Through the power of software, you can avoid charging your iPhone without any manual intervention, even when it’s not the best time to charge your iPhone.