Switch off your gadgets on E-day

Consumers are being asked to switch off unused gadgets and stop wasting electricity on the 27th February – the UK’s first national ‘E-Day’.

Doesn’t sound too difficult, does it? Except research from uSwitch.com shows just how big a deal this is really going to be for digitally dependent Brits who just can’t help over-charging their gadgets:

Midnight charger: over nine million households charge up their gadgets overnight

Mobile madness: over 22 million phones needlessly charged up every day

Digital dependents: ‘comfort charging’ of mobile phones accounts for at least 14.1 billion wasted energy hours a year

Standby state of the nation: 43% of consumers admit to leaving their television on constant standby. But 53% leave their digital TV set top and 40% their PC on standby too

Counting charge-up costs: with the average household energy bill now hitting £1,026, changing charge-up habits could protect people’s pockets as well as the planet

uSwitch.com urges consumers to adopt a ‘charge-up conscience’ and switch off this E-Day (Energy Saving Day), 27 February 2008.

As the UK holds its first national ‘E-Day’, research from uSwitch.com, the independent price comparison and switching service, has found that over a third of UK consumers (35%) regularly charge up their gadgets – such as mobile phones, iPods and PDAs – overnight while they sleep, accounting for an estimated 16.6 billion hours of unnecessary energy usage over the course of a year.

Britain’s digital dependency has led to consumers requiring gadgets to be in a permanent state of readiness with people unwilling to risk letting their mobile phone, iPod or PDA run out of power. As a result, they are indulging in damaging habits such as ‘comfort charging’:

Most mobile phones only require two hours charging yet 29% of people admit to charging them for three to 24 hours a day

1.4 million households (5%) charge their phone all day every day – whether needed or not - accounting for approximately 11.3 billion wasted hours of energy each year.

And it’s not just handheld gadgets – four in ten consumers admit to leaving their PC/laptop (40%) and TV (43%) on constant standby, while over half (53%) never use the OFF button on their digital set top box.

Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com, says: “E-Day is a great opportunity for us all to stop and think before we plug-in and power up our gadgets and gismos. We are increasingly dependent on technology and this is coming at a high cost to ourselves and the planet. If we become more aware of the electricity we use we can work towards reducing our bills and our impact on the environment.

“Our behaviour has yet to catch up with technology. We need to understand how to use our gadgets in a responsible and energy efficient way and learn to avoid wasting energy by needlessly charging-up or leaving things on stand-by. Consumers should also check that their home energy provider meets their household’s needs today. If you signed up to an energy plan years ago it is very unlikely to still be the best one for you now, given how much your energy usage will have changed.

“If E-Day makes everyone in the UK think that little bit more about the electricity they use and how much it costs them then it will have done its job.”