Vampire Electronics

According to Future Forests, only 5% of the power drawn by cell phone chargers is actually used to charge phones. The other 95% is wasted when you leave it plugged into the wall, but not into your phone.

You’re probably like most people and are making a more conscious effort to cut your energy consumption. You now only run full loads of laundry and have swapped several incandescent bulbs in your home for those energy-efficient compact fluorescents. But while you are taking these steps to use energy more efficiently, many of your appliances are still adding to your electric bill—even when they are turned off. Often referred to as vampire electronics, these appliances that never really shut down could be adding up to more than you realize.

Look around your home and you may see the flicker of red or green standby lights on appliances like DVD players, TVs, computers, and cell phone chargers. The glow of digital displays on appliances like alarm clocks and microwaves can light up a room. These standby lights and digital displays are a sure sign that although these appliances may be turned off, they are still drawing power.

It is true that just one appliance on standby may not use much power. The average annual energy use of a microwave in standby mode is just 84 kilowatts. But a majority of customers have several appliances in their homes that never fully shut down. In fact, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study estimated that standby power consumption accounts for approximately 5 percent of total residential electricity consumption in America.
Add up all of the vampire electronics in your home and multiply their energy waste over the course of a year and you’ll be surprised to see how much money it equals. For the average homeowner, this can add roughly 20 percent to monthly electric bills, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

To eliminate this energy waste and trim a portion of your electric bill, unplug appliances when they are not in use. Or, simply plug these appliances into a power strip and use the switch to turn them completely on and off between uses. In addition, unplug the chargers for battery-operated electronic devices like cell phones once the battery is charged.

By unplugging vampire electronics, you’ll save that energy from ever having to be generated, which is good for your bottom line and our environment. You probably wouldn’t leave the house with the facuet running, so why keep letting electricity go to waste? Download the worksheet below to help you figure out how much energy your vampire electronics are costing you.

Energy Vampires Worksheet (pdf)

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