Inspire and Empower; No More Vampire Power
It’s the end of a good day. You’ve turned off all of your lights, you’ve shut down your computer and gaming system. You didn’t invite any supernatural creatures to hang out. But somewhere lurking in the dark is a sneaky little monster: vampire power. 🧛
Vampire power is also called vampire load. It’s a wild phenomenon where devices – even though they are seemingly off – are using a small amount of power (they’re often in standby mode).
What’s so bad about standby mode? It’s designed as a nice convenience, so your devices don’t have to boot all the way up when you need them. The problem is that standby mode ends up being an expensive and surprisingly wasteful convenience. It’s not a lot, but all the hours of little teeny power sucking add up over time.
While we can’t slay these power-sucking vampires with a stake through the heart, there are other ways to combat these loads.
How Big of a Deal Is This?
A landmark 2015 study from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that in total, Americans are wasting “$19 billion a year — about $165 per U.S. household on average — and approximately 50 large (500-megawatt) power plants' worth of electricity.” Holy smokes!
The NRDC study found that this waste totals nearly 23% of our homes’ total electricity consumption. That’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away from a quarter of your power!
Sometimes our individual wants and the needs of our communities are at odds. But not in this case. When it comes to vampire power, the individual and social costs are totally aligned:
Individually, $165 is money you and I would prefer not to waste.
And socially it is in our best interest not to waste 50 power plants’ worth of electricity as a country.
The Biggest Offenders
So which devices in your house suck up the most power when they’re not actively running? This blog lists the top five biggest energy wasters, ranging from $165 to $15 per year:
Televisions - $165/year
Video Game Consoles - $75/year
Desktop Computers - $40/year
Laptops - $19/year
Kitchen Appliances - $15/year
Solutions for Real Humans
In a perfect world, all manufacturers would just redesign their products to minimize power draw while idle. Such designs are not universal, so there are some simple things we as individuals can do.
1. Leave your rarely-used devices unplugged
Simply unplugging unused devices will ensure that no power is being used. But if we’re being honest (record scratch) who’s going to remember to do that for every electronic device in their home? Humans can be forgetful, so this solution is anemic (get it, blood reference?). We need solutions that work with our forgetfulness, not against it.
2. Look for Energy Star listed devices
When it’s time to purchase one of those big power suckers, be sure to shop for an Energy Star rated device. When you buy something with an Energy Star label you know it has been reviewed based on strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This will help save you energy for devices that won’t realistically get unplugged. This solution is good.
3. Grab a smart powerstrip (hint: this is our favorite solution)
The absolute best solution is to grab a smart powerstrip (or three). These powerstrips limit vampire loads by cutting off power to products that go into standby mode—your TV, gaming system, printer, and even some coffee pots. How are they so smart? Just by monitoring the amount of power being used, they know when something is in standby mode and no longer needs to be on.
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In addition to this standby monitoring, another common feature in smart strips is to group outlets together. For example, when power is cut to your TV, some outlets downstream should also get turned off. To use this feature, put your DVD player, game console, and receiver/amplifier downstream from your TV on your new smart strip. Those devices don’t need to be on when your TV is off, so the smart strip powers down the whole kit ‘n caboodle.