What is Standby Power, Vampire Power, Vampire Load, Phantom Load, or Electricity Leaking?
Did you know that roughly 10% of your total electrical bill comes from appliances that you have ‘turned off’? There’s a name for this (actually, many names): ‘standby power’, ‘vampire power’, ‘vampire load’, ‘phantom load, or ‘electricity leaking’. They are all fancy names for the same thing – electricity that is wasted while you are not using an appliance. And you might be surprised to learn what appliances fall on the list. Standby power is used to not only keep remote control powered appliances ready to receive a signal – which, in itself, might be a surprise to many people – but it is also used in some devices that you might never have expected. So which appliances are we talking about? Let’s start with the likely suspects.
Remote Ready Electricity Leaking Appliances
In order to receive a remote control signal, appliances need to use electricity to be “on alert”. I’ll list the wattage used while ‘turned off’, if applicable, based on research done by the Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory on Standby Power.
In many cases, disturbingly, the amount of energy used when ‘off’ is close to the amount of energy used when ‘on’. For some context, the average LCD computer monitor uses 55W when turned on, a notebook computer uses 73W, and a CFL light bulb uses 18W.
The most common standby electrical vampire culprits that most of us would guess are:
- TV: 36 W
- Stereo: 11 W
- DVD or Blu-Ray player 14 W
- Cable set top Box: 21 W
- Video game console: 21 W
- Security camera: 17 W
- Media player for streaming: 6 W
Obvious Non-Remote Phantom Load Electrical Appliances
This next category of electrical leaches are the ones that are not controlled by a remote, yet still, rather obviously, waste electricity, but there isn’t much you can do about reducing that:
- Modem: 13 W
- Furnace: 4 W
- Air Conditioner: 5 W
- Microwave (w/clock): 13 W
- Smart socket: 5 W
Not So Obvious Phantom Load Menaces
And last, but not least (in electrical waste), are the appliances that you wouldn’t really expect to be using electricity while turned off and not even charging:
- Printer: 15 W
- GFCI outlet: 26 W
- Computer monitor: 15 W
- Desktop computer (off, plugged in): 17 W
- Laptop computer (off, plugged in): 13 W
- Computer stereo speakers: 6 W
- Wireless phone (charged): 7 W
- Coffee maker: 9 W
- Coffee grinder: 4 W
- Fan: 5 W
- Radio: 5 W
- Toaster: 5 W
- Oven: 1 W
- Toilet bidet: 4 W
- Electronics charger: 9 W
- Washing Machine: 10 W
- Dryer: 3 W
- Air purifier: 5 W
How to Stop Electrical Leaking:
You have a few options, in order to cut down on your electrical use on these products:
1. How much electricity are you wasting? Figuring this out is key. The Kill-a-Watt energy monitor is a nifty little device that tells you how much energy each of your electrical devices is using. You plug it into the wall and then your device into the monitor to get the readout. The goal in using the device is to figure out how much that electrical item is costing you if you keep it plugged in (on or off). This device will actually tell you exactly how much money you are wasting with each device. And how much CO2 as well. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to wasting energy.
Update: I have since purchased an energy monitor device and found out how much electricity it costs to power each of my household devices.
Update #2: Using the knowledge gained, I was able to cut my electric bill 22% with the energy monitor device!
2. Kill the big energy wasters: A control surge protector that allows you to control if your TV peripherals are getting electricity. You simply plug your TV into the control outlet and if your TV is off, it shuts down standby power to the other outlets so they aren’t draining energy while your TV isn’t even on. If it’s on, it turns on standby power. This could work on a computer too. It could save you $67 per year.
3. Unplug the damn thing! Reach down and unplug/plug in the device as you use it. Tough, I know.
I’d recommend using a combo of these two strategies. You could use the power strip in the three places where most of your appliances sit:
- Your office (computer, monitor, speakers, modem, phone, printer, fax, router)
- Your entertainment center (video game console, TV, stereo, DVR, DVD/Blu-Ray, cable box, satellite)
- Your kitchen (coffee maker, microwave, toaster oven, range, etc.)
Everything else? Just get down there and unplug it! You’ll get a little extra exercise, waste virtually no time at all, and save a ton of money!
Electrical Appliance Energy Savings Discussion:
- Did you realize that all of the listed appliances use standby power when turned off?
- Will you start unplugging them after reading this?
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I had no idea… I just walked around the apartment and unplugged stuff. I already had all of my tv components on surge protectors, so I moved them to a more convenient place to switch on and off. Question – what about lamps that are plugged in but turned off?
@ Adelle – you can keep lamps plugged in. They don’t use electricity when off… I suppose that is a good thing since you couldn’t see to plug them in, hah.
@ Ron – Yeah, I know. Kind of unfortunate, huh?
There are some things that you have no choice but to leave on all the time. My #1 would be the garage door opener. Also, I wouldn’t dream of turning off my cable modem or router. What if the network fails to connect up?
Not to mention that most Cable Modems can take up to an hour to get back up to top D/L speeds (this is normal in home systems, not so much for “guaranteed” business systems). And, leaving your modems on will help your ISP push any firmware updates to the modem – which normally you would want to happen ASAP.
Anyone use one of the smart power strips they have now? So you don’t have to manually unplug or turn off the strip?
@ JLH – based on the product description, I don’t think this shuts off all electricity flow. I think it basically just turns offer other appliances connected to your TV when you turn your TV off.
I have a Chefmate microwave that randomly starts beeping, displaying 6s, and not working if it’s plugged in for too long (upon googling, I found out this is relatively common). So I have kept my microwave unplugged when not in use for quite some time now! It only takes an extra 5 seconds to plug it in and reset the clock when I want to use it, I don’t even notice the extra effort anymore.
Although I keep a few things plugged in at nearly all times when I’m at home, I had read about this “phantom” a while back and routinely unplug almost everything when I’m out of town for more than a day. In the past few months I haven’t been plugging anything back in until I actually use it, and often unplugging things again when not in use. My electric bills have been $25 or less, so I can definitely see myself keeping this up. (Then again, I only own 3 or 4 things from the entire list you’ve posted of culprits, so that makes it pretty easy to keep things unplugged when not in use.)
I never understood why American wall outlets did not have an on/off switch. I come from India and we have them for everything. You could also have a master switch that will turn everything off as you leave the house (a lot of hotel rooms require you to drop your magnetic key in a receiver to provide electricity for use in the room). Your major equipment that REQUIRES uninterrupted electric supply (truly, only the fridge, A/C, answering machine, clocks and alarm systems). As you enter your home you can flick everything on (everything you had on before you left) with the flick of a single switch. Convenient and prudent at the same time…
Plus, you don’t risk getting electrocuted plugging something in and you do not have to plug outlets for kids or pets (the outlets in India are not placed close to the floor).
If you do this, be sure you know that your surge protector doesn’t actually protect your electronics when it’s off. Unplug the whole thing if you have concerns about power surges.
The components that protect against a power surge for your standard power strip surge protectors are passive devices. Meaning it doesn’t matter if the switch is on or off.
@ HK – some do…but I tend to plug in lamps to those because they are usually in rooms that don’t have ceiling lights.
@ Michael – good point, I think that is a common misconception.
i have a guitar amp..when not on no lights come on..if its plugged in am i wasting electricity
I’m an old grandma-8th decade. I don’t understand so much electronics it is laughable. I knew about vampires many years ag, but forgot about them. My deceased husband was an elctronic genius and we had/have tons of electrical equipment. I wouldn’t begin to know how to turn off the BOSE system, TV and rest of everything connected to it. Would I have to hire an elctrician to guide me and end up buying lots of on/off power strips? Oh, how about the dimmables, like the DR chandelier; wall switched fans/w lights? I’m getting a headache just asking!!!
Thank u for this! I have a small table top humidifier is my daughters room when she sleeps. Its turns off automatically after 3 hours. In the morning, the plug part is cold, which I think that means it isnt pulling electricity once it shuts off. Would u say its contributing to high Bill’s? Thank u again!
Something I rarely hear talked about are smart home devices. The Alexa controlled devices in particular. I have lots of switches/dimmers as well as several Alexa’s to boot. Then I have about 10 or more GFCI receptacles, and the newer electric panels now have dozen or Arc Fault Circuit breakers all using a little power. I am sure that all of this, although each being rather small add up to a lot when there are dozens of them. But the I also have 2 electric cars and this phantom power loss seems insignificant when these 2 cars alone use almost a megawatt a month. Good thing I have a 10 Kw solar system on the house now.
They should stop putting clocks in all our small appliances, because if we have to unplug them or turn the power strip off when not in use, it makes you have to reset the clock when you turn the power strip back on or plug the appliance … 5 appliances that come with a built in clock … that’s too many to have to reset every time you need to use the appliance.