Blogs > Green your Home > Electronics & Appliances
Where does that electricity go?
by Lee H.
To unplug or not, that is the question.
I'm always on the look out for ways to save energy. In addition to Mom's blurts, "Close the door! We're not air conditioning the outdoors!" and "Turn off that light when you leave the room", we're all replacing incandescents with CFLs. It finally dawned on me that our outside lights are on for a few hours each night, ready to greet whoever hasn't made it home by dark, and HEY! We can put CFLs in those coach lights, too. I can feel that electric meter slowing down, even now.
I've read that we should unplug everything in sight now, too. That makes sense to me if there's a little red light glowing to let me know that the TV is on, or the cell phone is indeed charging. But, what about the cell phone charging cord that has no cell phone attached? That's the part I don't get. If the phone is attached, I could see where it's saying "charge me up" and the energy keeps trying to flow into the battery, but if there's no phone attached, then where does the electricity go? Into the air?
Please fill in the blank for me if you know. I call myself the "Analytical Environmentalist" and this is one of those things that requires more information for me to process.
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Unplugging everything.
Hi, I hope I can be a little help. I have been trying to lower our household electrical usage and I have a pretty good understand of electricity.
Plugging things into a power strip is definitely the best way to go. That way the switch simply cuts the electrical power to the appliance and you know you are consuming no power. But you're right that little LED indicates when something is drawing power, and even those items without LEDs can be using power as well even without a light.
The things you need to be most worried about are AC/DC converters on your chargers from laptops to cell phones and really anything that runs on DC. Even though the appliance it unplugged and not drawing power from the unit, the charger is still drawing enough power to convert voltage from AC (from your wall outlet) to DC (what the appliance uses). This DC voltage is always present on the output whether it is being used or not.
I measured my cell phone charger with a Kill-a-watt meter and saw that it really used an insignifigant amount of power when the cell is not attached. It may be that the converter senses the connection and turns off when not in use.
But still be wary of anything with a box between the plug and appliance, it may be drawing power. Especially if there is heat coming off it. That's one way the energy is being let off (so I guess it is going into thin air.)
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Interesting question
Lee,
First for the outdoor lights, how about something like this: Low power light that is on at night, and the high power lights on a motion sensor. Those are easy to get in hardware stores. So you always have some light, and still have strong light when someone comes. You can also make everything motion based, but some people may not feel comfortable in total darkness.
If you are into mega saving on outdoors lighting, then motion sensors are number one (other than the moon).
For the other electric components: Generally speaking, small electronics appliances heat up when they consume electricity. This is mostly noticeable with small chargers, which have little internal space and large energy flow per size. If its hot its consuming.
When it is connected but not charging, the energy consumption is very low, but it is not zero. In that case it becomes significant only if it is left for a long time. So if you leave the cell phone charger a couple of hours in the wall without charging, not really a big deal. But if you leave it there for a week then it may be. Manufacturers normally do not publish the idle consumption (they do for TVs, monitors and other electronics that need to be idle to work, like turn on with a remote control or on a key stroke).
For a TV it may be in the user manual.
Generally speaking, TV idle consumption should be marginal comparing to watching TV a few minutes a day (not to mention a few hours a day). That is for modern TV, not the round black and white TV in a wood box in grandma's basement.
If you turn on the TV even for a few minutes, then the idle consumption is relatively marginal.
If you want the definitive answer you can get an energy meter. You plug it to the wall and then plug the appliance to it. It will tell you exactly what is going on.
Elli's keywords: energy meter, idle energy consumption, motion sensor
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User Comments:
Lee H. says:
Patricia, That AC/DC conversion makes sense as to why energy is in use when nothing is plugged in. We use the power strips, but it's always a challenge to get the family to step up and follow thru. Thanks for your... more »