01/22/12 1:00pm

Article By: EarthTechling

January 22, 2012 By Angeli Duffin

California has been buzzing with talk about vampires, but this has nothing to do with a certain porcelain-skinned heartthrob or HBO hit series. Instead, the vampires in question are the battery chargers that have been slowly draining electricity right under our noses.

But don’t fear, the California Energy Commission is putting a stop to it with the nation’s first energy efficiency standard regulating the battery chargers that increasingly accompany our on-the-go lifestyles. Starting in February 2013, consumer chargers for cell phones, laptops, toothbrushes – you-name-it – will have to comply with the new standard, followed by industrial chargers  in 2014.

image via Shutterstock

The estimated 170 million chargers in California households have been wasting some serious energy. They consume 8,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity each year, and nearly two-thirds of that energy is wasted by inefficiency, often as heat. Battery chargers use energy in three different modes: when they are actively charging the battery; after the battery is fully charged, but the charger is still plugged in; and when disconnected from the device, but still plugged into an outlet. The new efficiency standards set limits to how much energy can be consumed during each of these modes, reducing wasted energy by 40 percent.

The California Energy Commission says that once fully implemented, the efficient chargers will save an estimated 2,200 GWh each year – enough to power 350,000 homes – while trimming Californians’ utility bills by a total of $300 million and sparing 1 million metric tons of carbon emissions.