Energy use by chargers

Brie

I'm hoping that the techy types know about how a charger works.  

Now I thought it was just a conduit, little different than a simple cord and plug such as a lamp might have.  And if the lamp is turned off there's no energy being used.

But now with this whole carfuffle about energy prices I've been told that by leaving a single mobile phone charge plugged into a live plug there is energy being consumed to the approximate tune of £75 a year.  And that's before you actually add the mobile to the other end to actually get it charged.

So first - is this true?

And if it is would it also be true of those extension plugs that are sold at Lidl or wherever that you can use to plug in both the lamp into a 3 prong plug hole and a usb for the cable to charge the mobile.

cx6

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6343447/background-electricity-usage-8760-hours-a-year#latest

victor2

Brie said:

I'm hoping that the techy types know about how a charger works.  

Now I thought it was just a conduit, little different than a simple cord and plug such as a lamp might have.  And if the lamp is turned off there's no energy being used.

But now with this whole carfuffle about energy prices I've been told that by leaving a single mobile phone charge plugged into a live plug there is energy being consumed to the approximate tune of £75 a year.  And that's before you actually add the mobile to the other end to actually get it charged.

So first - is this true?

And if it is would it also be true of those extension plugs that are sold at Lidl or wherever that you can use to plug in both the lamp into a 3 prong plug hole and a usb for the cable to charge the mobile.

In short. No.

While an unused mobile phone charger may be consuming a little power when plugged in but not charging anything, it's almost certainly going to be significantly less than one watt. That's less than 9kWh per year. At one current standard variable tariff I'm aware of (after April's increase), that's £2.42 per annum. One watt is probably a high figure anyway - I've seen a report saying the average is 0.25 watts, but I have no other evidence to support that.

To hit £75, you'd need to be consuming about 31 watts 24/7. That would be a huge bank of chargers!

k_man

@Brie
You weren't reading the Guardian Vampire appliances article were you?
(The comments make for an entertaining read)

As above, unless you have a lot of chargers, any saving through powering off when not used, will be low.

Still worth doing if you use them infrequently, as there is some saving to be made.

An easy check for is it using power when not used
Is it old or very heavy

Is it warm to the touch

Does it make a humming noise

If the answer is yes to any of these then it may be consuming power when not used

And FYI, the thread linked to by @cx6 is worth a read, albeit covers a lot of other areas beyond mobile phone chargers.

victor2

Our of curiosity I just plugged a 4way extension lead into a plug-in monitor and 4 chargers into the extension - two smartphone chargers, an Anker double output charger and an iPad charger. All are between 2 and 5 years old. The monitor showed 0.0 W with no devices plugged into the chargers, apart from a brief jump up to 2 or 3 watts (about a second) when first plugged in. 

googler

Plug-in monitors which will tell you the actual usage of any of your appliances or chargers are easily found on Amazon and similar places.

victor2

k_man said:

@Brie
You weren't reading the Guardian Vampire appliances article were you?
(The comments make for an entertaining read)
...

Just read that article, and the comments!

No wonder you get people becoming obsessed about unplugging everything they can think of in the belief they're saving hundreds of pounds. While savings can be made, there's also a balance between convenience and, for many devices and people, a very small cost.

MattMattMattUK

victor2 said:

k_man said:

@Brie
You weren't reading the Guardian Vampire appliances article were you?
(The comments make for an entertaining read)
...

Just read that article, and the comments!

No wonder you get people becoming obsessed about unplugging everything they can think of in the belief they're saving hundreds of pounds. While savings can be made, there's also a balance between convenience and, for many devices and people, a very small cost.

I did the calculations on what I could "save" with all the vampire devices left plugged in, according to the Guardian article it worked out at more than my entire consumption, they seem to overestimate the level of consumption of devices on standby by an order or magnitude. 

k_man

Indeed, I feel a little cheated that most of my devices have low standby usage, so I am unable to make these vast savings 😁

flaneurs_lobster

k_man said:

An easy check for is it using power when not used
Is it old or very heavy

Is it warm to the touch

Does it make a humming noise

This advice seems to be the best to follow for a quick win on energy saving by unplugging. A check round my small but tech-heavy house found a couple of old-ish Pure DAB radios with brick chargers busy warming the rooms they are in while the radios are off. Will be unplugging the toothbrush from the shaver point too.

k_man

flaneurs_lobster said:

k_man said:

An easy check for is it using power when not used
Is it old or very heavy

Is it warm to the touch

Does it make a humming noise

This advice seems to be the best to follow for a quick win on energy saving by unplugging. A check round my small but tech-heavy house found a couple of old-ish Pure DAB radios with brick chargers busy warming the rooms they are in while the radios are off. Will be unplugging the toothbrush from the shaver point too.

I have been doing this anyway, as the humming annoyed me.
Now I gave found it uses 1 - 2w ( my watt meter only does whole watts) even with no toothbrush charging, even more reason.