Dracula and his kind may have captured the public’s imagination for years, but did you know that you have a real type of vampire living inside your house? Vampire energy is a real, tangible problem that nearly every U.S. household is already contending with, whether you know it or not.
If that sounds like a concern, it is! But don’t worry, after we walk you through what vampire energy actually is, we’ll teach you how to identify it in your own house. We’ll then explain how to eliminate those energy vampires from your life — no stake required!
What Is Vampire Energy?
Vampire energy refers to electricity used by appliances and gadgets inside your home when they’re not actually turned on.
We already know to turn light switches off when we leave a room to save on electricity costs, and it’s easy enough to turn the television off when we’re done watching. However, many items continue to draw electricity from the socket even after we’ve hit that power button.
We call that practice of drawing power in the “off” or “standby” mode vampire energy, and the appliances or electronics that consume the vampire energy are appropriately called energy vampires.
Why Does Vampire Energy Happen?
Vampire energy happens most often because modern devices are never truly turned off. Instead, when we hit the power button, they go into a standby mode, which allows the device to still receive inputs or perform updates.
Our modern, internet-connected smart devices are more guilty of this than their predecessors. Even turned off, a smart device can download and install an update, record a television show, or communicate with other internet-connected devices.
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All of these actions consume electricity, which means that our smart devices are the most powerful energy vampires around. As we connect more and more of our common household items to the internet, the problem of vampire energy is only growing bigger.
What Uses Vampire Energy?
You’ll be surprised by the number of devices in nearly every room of your home that are using vampire energy.
Entertainment Center
If you’re looking to slay the energy vampires in your home, the first place you should start is with your entertainment center.
Televisions are the biggest energy vampires in American homes. If you bought your television in the last decade, the odds are good that it’s an energy vampire. Instant-on televisions — that is, TVs with rear projection, LED, or LCD screens — consume power even while they’re turned off.
If they’re smart TVs, it’s a smart bet that they’re downright energy hogs, even when powered down. Unfortunately, the bigger your TV, the more vampire energy it’s likely consuming, too.
DVRs and TiVos are obvious energy vampires, because they’re busy working around the clock to record television shows, even when you’re not watching the television.
Video game consoles now have standby settings that allow them to download updates or entire video games, even while the consoles are turned off. As a result, these consoles are energy vampires, and as their processing power continues to improve, the amount of vampire energy they consume increases as well.
Office
Your office is a room where you’re likely to find a high concentration of energy vampires. First up: your computer.
Desktop and laptop computers can also consume vampire energy while they’re turned off, so long as they’re plugged into the wall. As with your other smart devices, computers can be placed in standby mode while turned off to allow them to communicate with other devices via the internet, and to download updates as needed.
Printers and fax machines are another common pair of energy vampires. Unless you physically unplug them while not in use, they’re still drawing power as they await a command to print or fax a document.
Kitchen
Kitchens are packed full of energy vampires. All of your appliances — your stove, microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker — consume energy around the clock, even when you’re not actively using them.
In the case of your refrigerator, this trait of being “always on” is a necessary feature. But as smart refrigerators become common, the amount of power these appliances are consuming is going up.
Other devices, like your microwave or toaster, are true energy vampires — they’re drawing power all the time, even when not in use, for no good reason. Your coffee maker likely only needs to do its job once a day, yet it stays on constantly.
Charging Cables
Charging cables are a particularly voracious variety of energy vampire, and you’ve probably got them plugged in throughout many rooms of your home. Be on the lookout for two specific varieties of charging cables, both of which draw a charge whether they’re actively charging a device or not.
First up are brick-style charging cables, which we typically use to charge our laptops. They’re appropriately named because they look like, well, bricks, and they happen to be energy vampires to boot.
The second type of vampiric charging cables are called “wall warts.” These come in many different varieties, but they all protrude out of your wall socket with a large plastic-enclosed housing. Like brick-style charging cables, wall wart cables won’t stop pulling energy until you intervene, making them energy vampires.
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Is Vampire Energy a Big Problem?
Now that you have a better idea of just how common vampire energy is, it’s time to consider just how much of an impact these energy vampires have on your monthly electricity bill.
A study conducted in 2015 by the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) found that vampire energy made up 23% of the total monthly power consumption in surveyed California homes. That means nearly a quarter of the energy we consume is powering always-on devices.
That also means that nearly a quarter of your electricity bill is going to help feed these energy vampires. The NRDC estimates that vampire energy costs homeowners in the United States $19 billion every year, which breaks down to $165 per house, on average.
That’s not chump change — every household in the country could use an extra $165 to spend on something more useful than devices that they believed were powered down.
Clearly, vampire energy is a big problem, and as we continue to connect more and more devices to the internet of energy, the amount of money we lose to these energy vampires is only going to increase.
How Do You Stop Vampire Energy?
Fortunately, stopping energy vampires is a lot simpler (and a lot less scary) than stopping an actual vampire. Here are the four easy steps you can take to cut down on your home’s vampire energy.
1) Invest in Surge Protectors
Surge protectors are a great way to banish the energy vampires from your home because they allow you to deny power to multiple devices with the flick of one switch.
Consider placing a surge protector by your entertainment center (you should probably already have one there). Then, when you’re done watching television or playing a video game, you can simply turn off these devices by hitting the switch on the surge protector. This will fully deny these devices the opportunity to draw power while they’re turned off.
2) Unplug Devices While Not in Use
If you have an electronic device in a part of your house where a surge protector isn’t an option, consider simply pulling the plug out of the socket when you’re done using the device.
This may add a small step to your routine, but simply unplugging your toaster after you’re done using it can save you real money.
3) Shop for Energy-Efficient Devices
As we’ve seen, modern, internet-connected smart devices are some of the biggest energy vampires around. For many of us, that’s a trade-off we’re willing to make — the convenience of being able to ask a speaker about the weather feels worth the extra money spent on powering that device 24/7.
And that’s fine! Unplugging these smart devices can disrupt the very functionality for which we purchased them. In cases like these, look for the most energy-efficient products on the market. Energy Star-certified products are especially efficient, so if you see that label, you’ll have peace of mind that you’re minimizing potential vampire energy.
4) Turn Your Outlets Off
This last step won’t be available for everyone, simply because the vast majority of homes in the United States don’t have switches for their outlets.
Elsewhere in the world — Europe especially — these switches have become commonplace, and they make it easy to cut off energy vampires at the source, simply by hitting a switch located on the actual outlet.
Check to see if you have these switches in your home. If you do, start using them to see those energy savings roll in.
Conquering Your Energy Vampires
Now you know all about vampire energy: what it is, where it comes from, and most importantly, how to stop it.
Energy vampires aren’t just drawing electricity out of the outlet, they’re also taking money out of your wallet, to the tune of hundreds of dollars every year. Fortunately, there are easy steps you can take to help combat these energy vampires without having to give your house a total makeover.
If you’re interested in learning more about topics like this one, read more energy-related articles on Tara Energy’s blog. And good luck conquering those energy vampires!
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