DW “learned” from some obscure source that we need to unplug lots of stuff around the house unless it’s not actually being used. So I plug the cord into the bottom of my cell phone at night, go back the next morning, and wonder why it hasn’t charged. Then follow the cord and find the transformer has been unplugged.
So how much juice do these things really draw when not connected to the phone? i say it’s essentially zero, cuz there has to be a load for current to flow. And even if it is left in use 24/7, at 0.2A draw that just a few pennies a month.
“Put your creed in your deed.” Emerson
“When asked if you can do something, tell’em “Why certainly I can”, then get busy and find a way to do it.” T. Roosevelt
Replies
It's true. The devices and appliances that stay in standy mode (VCRs, DVD players, computers, cell phone chargers, and microwave ovens) and the ones that have transformer boxes on the cords are the ones that use power when not in use. Anything that has a light on it (toasters, etc) is using power. Stoves with clocks, etc.
Can be up to 10% of your bill.
The idea is to unplug them or put them on a power strip that is turned OFF when not in use.
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/vampire.html
More ways to save: http://www.squidoo.com/How-To-Lower-Electric-Bills
We are pretty cautious with power use at our place and have the lowest bills of most any of our friends & family. But...Can't help but remembering discussions here at BT about such things as heated walks and driveways. Now there's a good use of power for you.Then there are the people who move to the south to escape winter only to burn massive power using air conditioning in the summer.And those wasteful Canadians heat their houses eight or ten months a year!Hard to imagine much of an impact in energy saving by unplugging my cell charger in a world such incredible power consumption.
You can get monitoring devices like this.
http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU
You would be surprised at the numbers.
My library has a dozen or so of those monitors ("Kill-a-watts" I think they are called) and they loan them out for free just like library books. You really only need them for a day or so to get a feel for what your situation is but I think you can keep them for two weeks.
Use a little common sense. If something is used daily then leave it plugged in. If only used once a week or once a month unplug it. Among other things, leaving a wall wart plugged in increases the chance that it will be zapped by a lightning surge.
Its not alot of savings, but we shut down power strips every night. Everything in your house with a standby light, clock, or remote control uses power when its "turned off".
Cant hurt anyways.
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
So you all unplug your stuff everynight then have to go and reset all the clocks in the morning????? Soinds like a royal pita.Webby
Good appliances will have a battery backup for the flippin' clocks. How hard is it? there are plenty of devices that do this. It irks me that they still make appliances w/out this kind of thing!
No we don't, but the point is still well put. A plugged in charger consumes energy even when not charging ... it is an energized transformer. Point is to think in terms of ways you can disconnect some of these kinds of loads w/out all the girations.
Bet we see in the near future more devices that essentially disconnect themselves when done charging ... now there is a money making idea .... and motion sensors on our TVs .... then not only will I fall asleep in front of the TV, but it will feel slighted and shut itself off!! ;)
A plugged in charger consumes energy even when not charging
How much? The charger for my blackberry has a nameplate rating of 0.2A at 120V. So how much does it draw when not charging?"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Most of the small chargers will actually draw about half of their nameplate load while charging, and will draw about half of the charging load when "unloaded". There is a fair amount of variability, though.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
We're talking small amounts here. My guess is somewhat less than the nameplate (duh). For something like that, it may be more in the non charge mode than other devices that require more charging juice (relatively speaking). You are right, though we are talking tiny amounts. Name plate is 24 watts. Do you leave a 13 watt CFL on 'just because'?
But if everyone turns off their blackberry/cell charger when it's not used, that would be 1200 megawatts for say 50,000,000 devices (at that nameplate rating). A reasonable size power plant. That amounts to in excess of 10 billion KWH in a year at an average cost of say $0.10 ... is $10 billion dollars.
That is a lot of money to put out a lot of effort and resources to bother to generate electricity and transmit it and then to figuratively through in the trash can with no use/value whatsoever.
I'm not advocating one way or the other, but simply illustrating in other terms what the meaning of the OP's topic is elluding to. It's not the seemingly tiny amount of savings you get for any one effort, it's the multiplier of the savings that may be the significant/key element, here.
I've done some calcs for e.g. shutting down computers/monitors vs. letting them go into standby. I've measured the 'sleep mode' power draw. It isn't much, but if you multiply the savings by the number of computers in a large organization, the savings become collectively significant for in this case a relatively tiny effort/habit. Computer draw in standby vs. use mode I suspect is MUCH lower (relatively speaking) than a charger.
In this day and age of the huge use of electrical devices, the parasitic electric draw in the idle/off mode has become a significant consumer (collectively).
Just adding a little perspective.
Clew-
Could you share some of those numbers dealing with shutdown instead of standby?
Thanksthe other half is the proper application of knowledge.
I'll try to remember to e-mail myself a note from the office.
Found it ....
Old tube CRT - .55 on ... Standby .035New flat panel 0.41 on 0.005 standby
These are amps ... at ~110-120 volts. Accuracy? May not entirely be there ... just used a clamp on.
Didn't measure the CPU
Thanks.
This is a great question that I always meant to post, about these chargers and consumption, your math is interesting and one can see how it would add up.
Monday night I pulled an all nighter working on an Applebees restaurant and amazed by all the business that are lit up all night looking if they are open. We've worked alot of these jobs across the state & notice it everywhere, businesses & malls lit up as if open.
We get the sermon about conserving energy but when you drive around at night, it looks like day, If we all unplug are stuff we could save a gazzilion dollars and the environment & ect....
Wouldn't the bottom lines of these companies be improved if they would "unplug" at night & billions of dollars be saved also & resources? or is this just a lot of feel good talk
No one should regard themselve as "God's gift to man." But rather a mere man whos gifts are from God.
In one of the classes I took a few years ago,the most power consumed in commercial office building is by lighting. I found that hard to believe when I know we have two 120 ton chillers in one building and two 100 ton chillers in another, that are staged to run on load demand. We have no central heating in either of these building, so those big suckers run year round. But then so do the lights.
Currentfederal energy code requirements are phasing in automatic lighting controls systems on all new construction. There are also tax credits being given for retrofitting older building with those controls and upgrading them to newer electronic ballast.
Smaller businesses seem to be behind the curve or maybe just unaware where the bulk of the energy usage is being consumed. Without some type of baseline data they see no justification for the capital investment needed to start saving energy.
Thanks for the reply, you are right, lighting doesn't seem like it would be the biggest when you site those big chillers, and we know it doesn't stop with the chillers but all the pumps and air handlers and all the other mechanicals. Like my OP, when I'm out working at night the businesses I see are big name national chains, where are there big wigs in charge, can't they see this. I know most overhead seems to be the employees and the powers that be must be focused on that.
Paul No one should regard themselve as "God's gift to man." But rather a mere man whos gifts are from God.
Yeah and then I call on the big chains to offer energy management and they say ... oh that's OK we have a guy on staff taking care of that. I've a Home Depot down the street and it has some HID on 24/7 at both ends to light outdoor storage/garden areas. They don't need them late at night and they don't need many of them all day long ... I think I estimated like $1,200 a month savings once to better control the lights. It was like over 100 fixtures at say 250+ watts each!
Makes me shake my head, we should be concerned about all these things & the big boys that could really make a difference in so many ways just keep doing what they do & us little guys should worry about cell phone chargers & VCR's & the like.
I've been in many restaurant kitchens working, as a outside contractor, and witness so many facets that leak not just drip but run, not just one, but many times two or three, 24/7
You site the HD case of the HID lights and come up with $1200.00 a month, thats some serious cash Xs 12 months Xs how many stores? and thats one business.
Go figure
On the good side, My oldest brother works for a large Danish company that makes electronic speed controls & drive systems for all types of industries & energy efficiency and upgrading is becoming a larger part of their business.
He told me he was just in CA at a major brewery and they told him they had about 300 drives on the lines, took him and another guy four days to inventory the drives in the facility, over 1200 drives to be upgraded & maintained, brewery passed.
Be sure you unplug your cell phones & install CFLs and save the planet!!
All this talk is makeing me GREEN!!!
Paul
No one should regard themselve as "God's gift to man." But rather a mere man whos gifts are from God.
The companies that are making money (or at least not losing it now) are those that pay attention to such details.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Keep in mind that all that AC is being used to suck out the heat from the lighting.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
And then there's streetlights... even in the middle of nowhere.
We could save about half the energy put into street lights if they just had shades so all the light was reflected downward. Would make for a darker sky as well, so you could see the stars again like when you were a kid (if you're as old as I am).
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Our county, and some others around us, have "Dark Sky" ordinances.All burnt out street lights must be replaced with shaded fixtures and all new fixtures must be shaded.Hey, I thought you were a youngster, one of those under fifty types. : )
Yeah, when I was running for legislature I figured that would be my "thing" if I (by some miracle) got elected.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
There are fixtures that are actually 'dark sky rated' or 'dark sky approved'. Any light not hitting the object intended to illuminate is wasted. It can actually be detrimental to the quality of the lighting as the direct glare to the eyes makes it difficult to see what that very lamp is illuminating.
Yeah, and being "Dark Sky" rated adds only something like $15 to the price of the fixture (and likely saves that much in 2-3 years), but they still don't get used. Mostly simple inertia, I'm guessing -- "If it was good enough for my grandpa..." Well, your in your grandpa's time there weren't Walmart parking lots illuminated at night like it was midday.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
On a commercial level the list of parasitic loads seems endless. It's absolutely amazing. I've been in the commercial energy business for about 30 years and it still amazes me.
I'm even more amazed at how much architectural design is still living with the 60s attitude that anything is OK and anything goes. Often no consideration whatsoever to simple energy design rules of thumb that have been part of architecture history for thousands of years. There are still LOTS of firms out there who think they are better than those tried and true design elements. And I'm finding many of the 'green' designers w/ e.g. LEED or 'green' certifications ... just do that for show and marketing; they really don't much practice what they should. Then again, if a client says 'I want', who is to bite the hand that feeds them? I would think they would begin to influence and educate their clients, though.
What's amazing to me is every hotel now trains high powered spotlights against the sides of the building so travelers can see it from a distance. You get inside and turn off the lights to go to sleep and it's like daytime in the room. So you close the nuclear blast curtains all the way across the window to get it dark, and you oversleep in the morning because you have no idea that the sun came up. Or else if you use the alarm clock, when it rings, you can't believe it's morning, because absolutely no daylight is making it in to the room.
You got that right on! And they can do pretty much the same thing without lights shining directly at the windows.
I want to know when the lighting manufacturers are going to increase their choices of quality exterior lighting. They shouldn't cost any more. They just require more thought than a rock. My wife and I looke high and low for good light fixtures for our new house ... 99.9% were the classic junk ... all you see as you approach is the bright piercing glow of the lamp. Amazingly so, we found ones at Lowe's for like $35 that were very nice. We even looked at some higher end shops ... 'course we did have a budget that we wouldn't spend e.g. over $60 for a fixture of that type.
I remember reading somewhere that the phantom power use in the USA is equivalent to the total power demands of Australia.
Phantom use is wall warts and devices that are "on" even when switched off, but still plugged in.
Little bits here and there really add up to real numbers at some point.
I'm not advocating one way or the other, but simply illustrating
That's what i was looking for. Someone had a tag line here a while back, something like "one measurement is worth a thousand opinions".
1200 megawatts for say 50,000,000 devices
I see where you got 50 mil devices, but where did the 1200 MW come from?
Here's my math, tell me if it's right:
0.2A nameplate = 120v x 0.2 = 24 watts x 24 hrs/day x 30 d/mo = 17,280 W/mo = 17kwh x 10 cents = $2/mo to run the charger."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
That's 50 mil times 24 watts ... 1200 MW ... that is the plant capacity required for the load. Multiply by number of hours to get kwh. Still with me? In reality the device MAY draw half of that power when not charging something. But the point remains. I'm just pulling out semi-arbitrary numbers, but thinking there is some degree of accuracy to at least make the point here.
We're just talking phone/blackberry chargers ... and I'm bettin' there is a LOT of them. Now we have all the other countless devices that 'idle' 99% of the time. How about our tool chargers? Now THERE may be some serious power draw! ;)
..... need I say more"A small leak can sink a great ship."
-Benjamin Franklin-
Some friends lived off the grid with solar collectors and battery power storage. They had to be maniacal about power use, so everything was either unplugged when not in use or controlled with a wall switch. Once they got used to it, it was no big deal.
Doesn't it make a difference if the transformer is electronic vs. magnetic? Don't the magnetic ones heat up and use a lot more power when not charging a device?
Most of the ones we use appear to be electronic.
Jeff
I believe the electronic ones are more efficient, though it could be that they cause more distribution losses.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
I've been unplugging mine.
Will Rogers
If you want to check it out, buy yourself a kill-o-watt:
http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU
The ones that I've looked at have pretty miniscule power draw when they're off compared to on.