Plugged In, Not Plugged Up: The Hidden Cost of Leaving Chargers Hooked
High Price for Carelessness: Cable Left in Outlet Leads to Expensive Damage - Unattended Charging Cable Causes Surge Damage Expenses
by Burt Hammer** ⏱️ 3 min read
Savage warning: If you're not mindful, you could be a secretpower waster — and your wallet and the planet might pay for your lazy habits! Those darn devices, always drawing power when you think they're idle, with your TV, speakers, and gadgets sucking your cash dry, left and right. A TV screen, for instance, can drain up to €50 annually from your pocket while it idles in standby mode.
Why are we so careless? "Convenience," you say? You charge your smartphones, tablets, and laptops in the same spots, the smartphone by the bed, the laptop at your desk, and the tablet in the living room. Never wanted to clutter up the joint with all those chargers, so you leave them in, even after your appliances are juiced up. Who has time to hunt down your wires, right? But, ole buddy, that slothful action could be costing you big time...
What Unused Cables Drain
To truly know the score of these idle cables, we did a little investigation. Grabbed ourselves an old-school power meter for the socket, you know, the one your grandma had, and plugged in various chargers, with and without the devices in question. Kept track of how much they sucked up while charging and in their cozy standby mode.
Threw in a solid USB-C charger from Anker, a vintage iPhone charger, and one for a MacBook Air sporting an M1 chip.
The Outcome? No Brainer
Turns out, when no device is connected, the chargers don't actually use power, but don't celebrate just yet, mate. They're still draining energy from the grid, thanks to the transformers inside. Not enough for our meter to sniff out, but it sure adds up.
Plugin a fully charged MacBook Air, and its consumption level ranges from 6 to 8 watts. The moment the battery kicks off, the power draw shoots up to 28 watts. The iPhone charger echoes a similar tune. It guzzles 7 watts when charging an empty smartphone and the same for the iPad, with a full battery. When the iPad is switched off but still charging, the Anker feeds the tablet 7 watts, keeping the battery toasty at 96%.
Stand Down for the Earth: Disconnect
The numbers don't lie: Consumption doubles when a device is charging, and it plummets in standby. It makes sense that chargers consume less when fully charged devices are in tow, but leave them in the socket, and your laziness flings you a bill.
Studies show that an idle mobile phone charger chomps up about 2.5 kilowatt-hours yearly, a figure most of us can afford, right? Well, if everybody keeps it going, it adds up to an astonishing 170 million kilowatt-hours of energy squandered just from smartphone chargers nationwide, with other devices excluded. Yikes!
The climate's disregard for indulgent behaviour? An unused charger for a laptop or tablet adds another 82,450 tons of carbon dioxide to the environment. But, hey, if you don't care about that, don't leave anything plugged in. Those defective devices can spark a fire silently, and we sure don't want that!
- Charging Cable
- Power Outlet
- Electricity
- Tablet for Seniors
- iPhone
- Charging Device
- iPad
- MacBook Air
Meh Backstory:
- You didn't ask for a grimy lesson in electronics, but here it is anyway: Unused charging cables contribute to phantom power, also known as standby power. It's that sneaky energy consumption by appliances during what you think are idle times. Even when the energy drain seems minimal, it mounts up over time.
By the Numbers:
- One idle charger can use between 0.1 to 0.5 watts per hour. That's about 5 to 10 kWh extra usage over a year — equivalent to 50 to 100 hours of TV time!
The Damage:
- Phantom power can account for up to 11% of a household's annual electricity consumption, depending on the devices in use and their standby habits, according to Spain's Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE).
- Phantom power usage globally amounts to more than 400 terawatt-hours per year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), enough to power tens of millions of homes.
Why You Should Care:
- Phantom power wasn't made for fun. It increases your electricity expenses, strains your power infrastructure, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, and requires additional natural resource usage. Ditching the habit of leaving your chargers plugged in can help conserve energy and save your wallet a few pennies... or euros, whatever.
The Commission has also adopted a proposal for a directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling of gadgets, such as smartphones, and other electronic devices. Despite these efforts, many individuals are still careless about their consumption habits, leaving chargers for these devices plugged in, even after these appliances are fully charged. This slothful action could be costing valuable energy resources and potentially leading to unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions.
