Written by Glenn Moore on October 14, 2019
Take a second and think about everything you have plugged in at home right now. A few obvious things may immediately come to mind: televisions, phone chargers, printer, refrigerator. But once you start to really think about it, you’ll realize that the sheer number of electronics you have is overwhelming … game consoles, coffee maker, blender, toaster, microwave, tablets, smart watch, electric toothbrush, smart speaker, and well, you get the point. The list is practically endless.
Today, the average American household owns about 50 consumer electronic devices. All this energy use can add up fast, but not always in the way we imagine. Many utility customers don’t realize when their plugged-in devices are turned off, they’re still consuming energy—becoming energy vampires. Spooky, right?
The Haunting Reality of Energy Vampires
We live in an on-demand society. Most consumers prefer to have their electronic devices plugged in and ready to use whenever they wish. It’s not that utility customers want to waste energy, they are simply unaware of the vampire loads their electronics generate when plugged in. For utilities trying to cut costs and save energy, one of the easiest ways to do so is to educate consumers about the energy vampires, also known as phantom loads, that are in their homes and places of business.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reports that energy vampires can be responsible for up to 20 percent of a consumer’s monthly utility bill. With a statistic that significant, it would seem shaving down energy costs should be a great incentive to get customers to take action on reducing vampire loads, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Even with the motivation to save money, the chances of a customer adopting an inconvenient routine of finding and unplugging each of their energy-sucking devices every day is slim to none. Utilities can try as they might to get the word out about energy vampires, but little action will happen if there’s any question of convenience. There is, however, an easier way to solve this problem: energy-saving advanced power strips.