The mistake we all make with a charger and which drives up the electricity bill

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To save energy and reduce your bill, every action counts… even those that seem insignificant like… leave your charger plugged in without a device on the end. Indeed, this practice consumes electricity, even if the energy, economic and ecological impact may seem minimal, report our colleagues from Aufeminin.

The heat generated by the charger

The Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) regularly sounds the alarm on this subject. According to her, a charger consumes electricity as soon as it is plugged in, even when charging is complete or no device is connected to it. To be sure, simply check if the charger heats up when plugged in without anything: this residual heat indicates unnecessary energy consumption.

Furthermore, leaving a smartphone to charge overnight, even when it reaches 100%, results in unnecessary electricity consumption. Engie offers a simple method to measure this consumption: the use of a Wattmeter. This device, plugged into a wall outlet, will then display the consumption in watts of any connected device – including chargers.

In 2020, Engie calculated the cost of leaving six chargers plugged into a power strip permanently. Testing found that these accessories consume an average of 0.3 watts each. If these six chargers remain plugged in all year round, that represents a total of 2.6 kWh per year. With the EDF price list in effect on August 1, 2022 (18.22 cents per kWh), this corresponds to approximately 40 cents per year.

This cost may seem quite insignificant compared to that of more energy-intensive appliances such as dishwashers or ovens. However, when millions of people adopt this habit on a daily basis, the collective impact becomes significant and the waste quickly represents a significant amount. Also, with modern chargers becoming more and more powerful and equipped with fast charging functions, current consumption could be much higher than in 2020.

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Teilor Stone

Teilor Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining Thesaxon , Teilor Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my teilor@nizhtimes.com 1-800-268-7116