If i leave my charger plugged in and the switch is on without any device charging, does it ‘waste’ electricity? Why/why not?
In: 58
remember, cost of electricity with taxes, fees, etc. amounts to about $0.20/kWh (20 cents per kilowatt-hour) at most, for much of the continental US.
A very very high quiescent (passive) current draw for a cell phone charger would be 10mA (0.01 amperes) which is 120V × 0.01A = 1.2W (watts). There are 24×30= 720 hours in a month. 1.2W = 0.0012kW. So the total energy consumption in a month would be 0.0012kW × 720h = 0.864kWh.
At 20 cents per kWh, that’s a whopping 17 cents for the month to leave a very crappy charger plugged in continuously. Even accounting for high peak time rates, and a higher overall rate state like California, it would still be under a dollar.
So from a monetary perspective, no it’s not a waste.
If you mean from a “green” perspective, no, still not a waste. Losses and inefficiencies from power generation and transmission dwarf things like this.
I realize this isn’t a very eli5 answer but it’s not something that can really be explained ly5
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