Do you have the habit of leaving the charger plugged in all the time? Even if you don’t use it, you’re wasting electricity. Let’s find out why.
We often do this for laziness, or simply because we think that an unused battery charger – but still connected to an electrical outlet – consumes nothing. Well, if you think so, you are very wrong. Although it is not used, in fact, the battery charger still consumes electricitysprinkling salt on your bills.
If you were unaware of this dynamic, start a pay attention to it. We will see in detail why energy is still consumed – and, equally, wasted – by chargers and power supplies that you have scattered around your home, so as to raise awareness of the problem and start using a second of your time to save.
Quite simply, just think that the charger itself must be powered. The primary energy consumer is in fact the power supply itself, which creates electricity while remaining connected to the outlet a closed circuit very small, necessary precisely for the operation of the battery charger. This very small process, which in technical jargon is defined “empty loss”is the reason why it happens waste of electricity and, likewise, sprinkling salt on your bills.
Battery chargers consume energy even if not used: that’s why
It must be said however that, thanks to the progress of technology, energy consumption derived from this lazy habit they are very content but still not to be underestimated. In fact, there is a European Union regulation, according to which any battery charger or external power supply produced after 2020 they must be environmentally friendlyand therefore without being able to overcome the empty power by 0.1 watts if there are no devices connected to them. For some power supplies with higher power output – greater than 50 watts – such as those for laptops, the allowable power loss goes up to 0.21 watts.
That said, let’s start counting. So get yourself a calculator and count the power supplies you have plugged in around the house. If we consider an energy price of 0.40 euro/kWh, approx 35 cents if you leave a battery charger plugged in for a whole year. For a laptop power supply, on the other hand, the expense goes up to 73 cents.
As we have said, thanks to the new European regulations, the costs are now decidedly low. However, consider the total expenditure for all devices and understand how annually this can be done save a lot. Also check if you have power supplies prior to 2020: some of them can reach a no-load power of even 4 watts, bringing the annual expense more than 13 euros. So start avoiding unnecessary waste of electricity, your wallet will thank you for it.