How much money do you save by unplugging unused appliances? Does electricity really flow through unused items?
June 30, 2010 by MrAuthor
Filed under Appliances
I just don’t understand how or why electricity flows through unused chargers and plugs to unused appliances. Does anyone have any information on this? Also, how much electricity flows through?
Everything that can be turned on using a remote control is using a small amount of power to "watch" for the "turn on" command.
Everything that has a small light like a "stand by" or "ready" light uses a little power for that light. A power strip that has an "on" light uses power for that light even though nothing in plugged in or turned on.
Some items have a clock that runs all the time. Those items use a little power even if the clock display is turned off.
Wall plug power supplies (the ones that are heavier for their size) have transformers that use a little power when they are plugged in but have no load connected. You can feel that they are warm even when they are not powering anything. The lighter weight ones have no transfomer and use less power when they are not powering anything.
Most items that don’t have anything like a clock display that you an see in the dark use less than one watt. That would be less than 9 killowatt hours per year counting the time that the item is actually being used. At the rates that most people pay, that would be less than 1 US dollar per year for each item. A clock with a big bright display might cost as much as 10 US dollars per year. Items with just a small pilot light clock display might cost 2 to 5 US dollars per year.
Compared to the days when there were no remote controls and you couldn’t see a clock at night unless it had a radium dial, quite a lot of energy is wasted if you add up all of the little one watt remote controlled items in the world.