Most people leave their electrical appliances such as cellphone chargers and TVs plugged into external power supplies. And a lot of people think when they turn off an electrical device that it doesn’t use any power. But did you know that any electrical device that has an external power supply connected to it will still use electricity while turned off?

The electricity consumed by electrical devices while they are turned off depends on the device itself. The range of electricity used by those electrical devices are from 1 watt to 50 watt. These numbers might sound low to you. However if you think about how many electrical appliances you leave plugged into an external power, these numbers can waste your money and the most importantly our resources.

For example a single cellphone charger will consume 1 watt plugged into the wall, even without a phone plugged into it. The same kind of cellphone charger will consume 4.5 watts of electricity with a fully charged cellphone plugged into it. And the same phone charger will consume 8 watts of power while charging a phone.

Then how about a TV which almost everyone owns at least one in their homes. A rear projection TV will consume 48.5 watts of electricity while it is turned off.

If the appliances we use the most are spending this much of electricity while turned off, how much amount of electricity is leaking due to our carelessness?

Let’s have a habit of unplugging the electrical devices from their external power or turning off power strips while we are not using them!