How to tame your silent energy vampires

What you need to know:

  • Perhaps more wastefully, idling products such as cellphone chargers left dangling from the wall draw a small current without providing any appreciable benefits.
  • In general, anything you can do to dumb down your smart devices should help narrow their trickle. Most households have over a dozen electronic devices. Unplugging all of them separately can be a bit tedious.

Electronics make up a significant portion of our household energy costs. Computers, printers, and WiFi routers alone account for around 25 per cent of our electricity bill. While electronics are becoming more efficient, their increased use offsets the gains.

At the same time, energy prices are rising.

There are a number of energy saving tips you can do to control your energy bill and none of them will cost you any money. Once you understand how electricity gets wasted and where you can step in, you can cut your bill and save money

Stuff like TVs and other stereo equipment still draw power when they’re plugged in but off — which is called vampire drain — due to the fact that they have to still power their receivers for your remote control to work. You’ll need to physically unplug these things from the wall to eliminate any power consumption when not in use.

In general, newer ‘smart’ appliances that have a lot of background processing draw more idle juice than older, dumb ones. In fact, as long as they are plugged in, some devices never truly turn off. For instance, modern TVs are constantly scanning the airwaves for remote control clicks.

Perhaps more wastefully, idling products such as cellphone chargers left dangling from the wall draw a small current without providing any appreciable benefits. Fortunately, even if it’s impractical to unplug all of your gadgets when they’re not in use, there are simple steps you can take to dull your vampires’ fangs and lower your energy bill.

As a general rule of thumb, the bigger and older the device, the more power it sucks up while it’s off. So it’s much more effective to unplug the decade-old TV in your guest bedroom than the phone charger that you bought last year.

A good sign that your charger is wasting your money is if it is warm although it is not charging anything. Even worse are devices that go into standby mode, rather than turning off.

You could try tinkering with a device’s settings to reduce the amount of activity that occurs when it’s idle. For example, if you leave the Wi-Fi connection active on an unused Nintendo Wii, it draws about 10 watts of power. Turn it off and this figure drops to 1.3 watts.

In general, anything you can do to dumb down your smart devices should help narrow their trickle. Most households have over a dozen electronic devices. Unplugging all of them separately can be a bit tedious.

However, if you have a power strip, you can group devices that you want to turn off collectively, for example your PC, monitor, and printer. Then simply switch off or unplug the entire strip after you have shut down the computer and kiss vampire loads goodbye.

You can do the same with your TV setup and kitchen appliances and plug electronics you need to be always on, such as the fridge or your WiFi router, into a separate power outlet. Switching off power strips will cost you a few seconds each day and, depending on your current bill, can save a tidy amount each year.

Finally, when you do buy a new electronic device, look for energy labels, like the Energy Star for office equipment or the EU Energy Label for household appliances. Energy Star labelled products, for example, use around half the electricity of standard equipment.

Moreover, these devices must offer a low-power mode. Get informed about equivalent labels as there are many companies nowadays that are energy conscious. A little more money paid for an energy saving device can save you many times the investment in the long run.

Wambugu is an informatics analyst. [email protected]