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Exorcising phantom power

Many appliances draw electricity — known as phantom or standby power — even when turned off. Disclosure rules could help consumers make better choices.

November 26, 2012|By David I. Levine
  • Many of today's appliances draw considerable electricity -- known as phantom power or standby power -- even when youve shut them down.
Many of today's appliances draw considerable electricity -- known… (Los Angeles Times )

You're responsible about conserving energy. You turn off the television when you're not watching it and the lights when you leave a room. But don't feel too smug. Your home electronics may be working against your green instincts.

Many of today's appliances draw considerable electricity — known as phantom power or standby power — even when you've shut them down. The typical American home has dozens of these devices, and they increase the average household electric bill by 5% to 10%.


Eliminating standby power might mean you have to wait extra seconds for your television to come to life, but it would also save you money. And the costs of phantom power can be significant. For example, the converter box for cable or satellite TV is likely to cost you hundreds of dollars over its lifetime.

Consumers can take steps to exorcise some phantom power, and it's worth the effort. If you have a television or VCR, say, in a rarely used guest room, unplug it. Also consider plugging your television and its related devices into a power strip, and flipping it off at night or when you go on vacation. And unplug chargers when they're not being used to charge a device.

But exorcising phantom power can't be entirely left up to consumers. For one thing, they have no way of knowing which devices draw the most power. Few consumers would knowingly choose devices that will cost them hundreds of dollars when turned off, but manufacturers aren't required to alert consumers to how much standby power a device consumes. This leaves appliance companies free to design devices that waste lots of electricity.



A number of other countries have gone even further and now regulate standby power. The European Commission has limited new appliances to drawing no more than 1 watt of power in standby mode, and South Korea requires warning labels on devices that draw substantial phantom power. It's time for the United States to catch up with the pack.

David I. Levine is a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. For more on phantom power, see

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