If the power switch is on and my phone charger is plugged in but no phone is connected to it, is the electricity still being consumed?
In: Engineering
A little bit since there is probably some circuitry in there that is energized. Practically speaking (from a household electricity consumption standpoint) it is close to zero though.
I remember when I was a teen, like 25 years ago, there was a push to get people to plug all their electronics into powerstrips and turn the strip on and off because of the background power consumption of TVs, VCR, etc. The selling point was that it could “save $90 a year”.
I was always skeptical of the claim, and if even if true, not having a permanently blinking 12:00 was worth 25 cents a day.
Into an AC outlet? Yes. AC/DC transformers draw at least some power whenever plugged in, even if no device is attached.
Think about the charger for your phone like it’s a water faucet and as soon as you open it water comes out. This means somewhere on the other end of the line a water pump has to produce pressure. So your charger also has to kind of produce pressure and waits for you to plug in the phone so it can deliver power. So it uses a small amount of energy.
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