What are Phantom Loads? They are described as the energy consumed by an electronic device that while not in use, still uses energy if it is plugged in but in standby mode. I had heard that my T.V. or computer will still use energy even when they aren’t on, but wasn’t alarmed. I began reading about energy use concerned about the amount of energy our house was consuming. My main goal was in preventing wasteful energy use. After reading numerous articles I came across several that referred to Phantom Loads. The term seemed scary and I wanted to learn more to see if this was something that affected me. Studies have been done around the world to determine the amount of energy consumed by electronic devices on standby mode. Studies found that more than 5% and sometimes as much as 13% of energy consumption was caused by these standby mode electronics.
I decided that in addition to the efforts we were already taking to conserve energy, by turning off lights, switching to CFL bulbs where we could, and installing solar screens that we should also look into reducing our Phantom Load usage. I want to make changes to our daily life that will have an impact on our energy use for the simple reason of lowering our utility bills.
Tags: Energy Use, Phantom Loads, Standby Power