I am talking about vampire power users. These are electronic devices that suck energy – and money from your wallet – even when they are not on. Vampire power is also known as standby power. According to the EPA standby power accounts for 5-10% of the residential power used in the United States. This could be even higher if you have lots of older, less-efficient, electronic devices.
It is pretty easy to determine which devices are using standby power. If the device has a remote than it needs to use standby power to be ready to respond to the remote. Devices that don’t have remotes but are ready to respond at the touch of a button are also using standby power. A microwave is a good example of this type of device. Also if the device has a clock than it is obviously using power. The other main type of device that uses vampire power is a plug-in adapter that converts AC to DC. Cell-phone chargers and laptop chargers are the primary examples of this type of device.
There are several ways to reduce your use of vampire power. You could just unplug your devices whenever you are not using them. For devices that you use frequently or have a hard to reach outlet though that could be a pain. In that case a power strip is handy because it will allow you to plug in several devices and shut power off to all of them with a flip of the switch. If you don’t want to turn off the power to all your devices you can get a power strip with individual switches. If you only need to turn one device on and off you can try this On/Off Adaptor Adapter with * LIGHTED * ON/OFF Switch!
Cutting your use of vampire power is an easy way to reduce your electricity expense and it keeps you from wasting electricity. Why pay for electricity that you aren’t even using? For more information on vampire power and saving money on electricity in general I recommend you check out Michael Bluejay’s saving electricity site.