How many watts does an 1,100 W microwave use — and what can run it?

The representative model is the Panasonic NN-SU656, a 1.3 cu ft countertop microwave. Panasonic's specification page gives two numbers that are easy to confuse: 1,100 W of cooking power and 1,500 W of power consumption. The box and the model name advertise the first; the outlet supplies the second. The difference is conversion loss between the plug and the food, and a power source has to be sized for the 1,500 W input.

What changes the draw

Panasonic publishes one input figure, for full power. Lower power levels and defrost reduce the energy a cooking run uses, but there is no published figure for them, so the tables assume the full 1,500 W. A larger or smaller microwave will list a different consumption figure on its rating label; that is the number to compare with a station's continuous output.

Starting draw

There is no starting figure on this page, and the Champion wattage chart lists microwaves among appliances that need no extra starting watts. The limit is the station's continuous rating: 1,000 W-class stations fail, whatever their peak.

Reading the tables

Runtime is minutes of heating at 1,500 W with nothing else connected. The page assumes 15 minutes of use a day, which is 375 Wh. Example: the Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen 2 has no maker factor on its record, so the default 0.85 applies: 1,024 Wh × 0.85 ÷ 1,500 W = 0.6 hours.