"Americans have an increasing number of devices that get plugged in and charged up," said Ronnie Kweller, spokeswoman for the Alliance to Save Energy in Washington.
Consider that a single house, according to some estimates, may have as many as four or five dozen of these devices contributing greatly to a monthly electric bill.
How much? The folks at Lawrence Berkeley offer a conversion factor:
If a device draws 1 watt constantly for a year, then its energy consumption is 9 kilowatt-hours. That corresponds to about $1. So when the chart on the lab's website (http://standby.lbl.gov/faq.html) lists 5 watts for a device, that means 5 times 9, which equals 45 kilowatt-hours a year, which equals $5 a year.
Multiply that by four or five dozen and, voila, a not-insignificant expense.
Kweller's personal example: "When the switch to digital television happened, we got a box from the cable company that had to be plugged into our TV. It has a light that is on all the time, so I assume it's drawing power 24/7."
Most houses have more than one cable box, so those eternal lights multiply.
Her television draws power, too, Kweller said, "though, as an Energy Star model, at least the standby power it is using is less than a model that is not Energy Star-qualified."
Some devices are definitely energy hogs. Individually, they may not consume all that much electricity. Together, they add up to a hefty, though hard to isolate, part of your monthly bill.
Let's start with your computer - the Department of Energy offers some guidelines to help you decide whether to turn it off.
Though there is a small surge in energy use when a computer starts up, that is still less than the energy used when the computer is running for long periods of time.
