Today's Energy Insight

Unplug your chargers when you're not charging. Every classroom, office or home usually has lots of little plastic power supplies plugged in to charge cell phones, digital cameras, portable gaming devices, cordless tools, two way radios and many other electronics. Most of these chargers continually draw energy into the power supply even when a phone or device is not connected to the charger. This is referred to as phantom or vampire energy.

Some newer electronics are combating this with a message to unplug when fully charged or the transformer will turn off when charged. To test this, check if the power supply is warm to the touch which indicates energy is being consumed. I recently worked with students and we tested several transformers with a watt meter and found anywhere from 3 to 15 watts being drawn by these devices when not attached to an item for charging.