Overnight Charging of Electronic Devices Wastes Energy
Overnight charging of electronic devices wastes energy. In this age of modern technology, more and more devices rely on electricity to function. Gadgets like cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, tablets and lately, cars, are plugged everyday to have their batteries recharged. Most of the time, we allot recharging time whenever we sleep so we can make sure that these batteries are fully charged. But what we don’t know is by doing this, we consume much more energy than needed.
Lawrence Berkley National Library has conducted a study regarding the wasted energy that electric devices use. The study revealed that an average cell phone uses 3.68 watts of power when it is charging, while 2.24 watts are consumed when the phone is charged, but still plugged. If left overnight for charging for 8 more hours, it would consume of about 0.018 kilowatt hours of energy. If done every night, the total amount of wasted energy is 0.13 watts, summing up of 6.5 kilowatt every year. The plugged charger alone is consuming 2.3 kilowatts for a year- that’s 8,760 hours of unused electricity. Imagine how much money you could save up if you just unplugged your cell phone on time.
Laptops are also energy wasters when left overnight. It can consume from 2 to 3 kilowatt of energy if left unplugged and switched off. The same amount of energy is used whenever your laptop is left on sleep mode. If calculated for about a year, the result would be more or less the energy of what the cell phones uses. Even on idle mode, the laptop consumes 15 to 20 watts of energy. Mp3 players like iPods consumes 0.25 kilowatt energy when charging and a little of 0.4 kilowatt when fully charged but still plugged.
A little knowledge about energy saving may help, not only our selves, but also our planet. This is only a reminder that we have limited sources of energy, and conserving them little by little is everybody’s responsibility. This is not only for us, but for our future generation.
Category: Technology