Top 5 mobile companies team up for energy efficient chargers
These days, it seems staying green and environmentally friendly is on the top of everyone’s list. People drive hybrids, recycle their gadgets (the non-sentimental ones, anyway) and conserve where they can. To help consumers, and the planet, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG Electronics have teamed up to make a common rating system for energy chargers. Believe it or not, when you unplug your BlackBerry, Touch Diamond, iPhone or any other phone from the charger, it will still draw electricity unless you unplug the charger from the wall unit. We all know just how much energy we can drain being gadget freaks, but by removing your charger from the wall when your gadget is done charging, you can save tons of energy. “If the more than three billion people owning mobile devices today switched to a four- or five-star charger, this could save the same amount of energy each year as produced by two medium sized power plants,” Nokia said in a statement. So, look for energy saving chargers when considering a replacement or a spare. Now all we can hope for is that manufacturers can agree on one universal charger for all gadgets and devices, but it seems hope is all we’re stuck with for the moment.
[Via Phonescoop]
Agreed. I refuse to purchase any device that does not charge via USB.
The power draw from an ac/dc power adapter when not plugged into a device is so very minimal. This is a complete PR stunt and nothing more.
So companies are giving the “apple environment friendly” approach.
Using my kill-a-watt, I measured the draw of my Blackberry charger at 1 watt when not plugged into my phone.
Assuming its rounded, its less than 1 Watt.
1 Watt, left in 24/7 for 30 days, thats less than 1 Kwh.
24 hours, 30 days = 720. that would be .720 kWh. So thats about 6 cents savings for me.
That’s an old looking LG charger there. Whatever happened to that supposed agreement between the five major manufacturers to switch everything to MicroUSB?
Using an environmentally friendly phone charger is not going to recede the oceans or lower temperatures… sorry, it’s not.
Thank you very much fro bringing this up I have actually discused at length this very issue on my blog as well. This is not a “PR” stunt by any means. I am an energy manager who help companies and business save money by knowing how they use their energy. We have primarily focused on the commercial and industrial areas but now that energy is becoming a issue for the residential markets we have started to do more work there as well. I’d like to invite you to my blog to find out more about what you can do in your home you can reach it through the web site at this address
Energy Expert
I will explain if people would just take this simple step and unplug a few things like chargers when not in use how it could affect you and your wallet.
Have a great day
Matthew Shields | Energy Expert
I just use USB charger, and anytime I replace a device, it has to use a standard usb charger to recharge or I don’t use it. Not for the energy savings, but because I’ve got a stinking DRAW FULL of AC adapters. If you have a lot of gadgets, you need 3-4 power strips just to plug the @$!%# things in.
Finally they come to their senses. Why can’t we have standard chargers for everything gadget related? It would make life so much easier. I agree with the people above who say USB is the way to go, but for example Nokia phones don’t charge from their USB port, for reasons that are beond me…
I order a lot of gadgets from china, and what I noticed is that they all have the exact same charger base, that has a USB port, and either a standard USB cable with it or a cable that has USB on one end and a device specific plug on the other.
This seems like a very good solution. Make devices with USB charging ability and supply a USB wall a/c adapter…
its not about your personal saving .720KWH x 300 million chargers in the US alone is 216,000,000 KWH or 216 megawatts enough to power 62,500 homes. no reason to waste on nothing
Guess what?, how many people are actually going to do this? I would bet maybe 10%, alright, so that is like 6,250 homes, still nothing to sneeze at, but globally a tiny impact. I am not saying we should not try to do it, but there are much bigger things we can do to save energy.
You know how many people still have crts and incandescent lights? 13watts vs 60watts per light bulb. That is 47watts being saved, even though that is not all the time on, say just one of those lights is on for 8 hours a day. That is 240 hours a day * 47watts = 11kW/h
If we round that is 11 * your 62,500 homes, that is almost 700,000 homes powered, that is on the low end, round and we get a million homes, then say that is 4 lights, which I think is fair for the number of lights in a house being on. That is 4 million homes, assuming 4 people per household that is 75million homes total. That is 5% energy saved of the US.
Calculating if all the chargers were unplugged that is .08% energy saved in the US, less then .1% energy, 1/50th of the energy saved from replacing our light bulbs, this should be a much bigger priority. If we put into fractions, that is chargers 2/2500 or bulbs 125/2500. For that small amount there are just to many easier things to do than to remember to always unplug my charger, replacing my bulbs I do once and can get on with my life.
Today our lives are all very busy and our minds can’t just remember all these little things when we have much bigger priorities. I have tried and I may unplug it once a week, it may only take 2 seconds, but my mind is on much broader issues then .08% energy being saved, being a computer engineer I can work on saving energy with computers, which take a whole lot more power, even low end ones take 200watts and they run all our lives these days, so lets work on the major energy sources that are possible to cut by furthering technology.
Also did you know europe is 80% powered by nuclear, a much cleaner source of energy then coal, this is the type of things that will keep our planet from being ruined.