How much does leaving things on standby cost?
Work out what any appliance costs to run per use, per month and per year on your own electricity rate — including what it draws on standby.
Using the Irish average of 40.42c/kWh — Eurostat, the second half of 2025.
Nothing is switched on here at all. This is a whole household's standby load — televisions, consoles, chargers and set-top boxes drawing power around the clock while doing nothing.
Common cases
What drives the cost
Nothing on this page is switched on. The figure comes entirely from devices drawing power around the clock while doing nothing — the set-top box, the console in rest mode, the soundbar, the printer, the microwave clock, the phone chargers left in the wall. Individually each is trivial, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed; the household total is typically 30 to 60 W, running 8,760 hours a year.
Two details make the number worth knowing. It is charged at the full unit rate every hour of every day, including the expensive ones, so it is one of the few costs on the bill with no cheap hours at all. And the composition is lopsided: modern televisions and chargers are limited by regulation to around half a watt, while a games console left in rest mode, an old set-top box, or a desktop PC asleep can each draw ten to twenty watts on their own. Finding the two or three worst offenders removes most of it, and a plug-in energy monitor identifies them in an evening.
How this is worked out
Electricity is billed per kilowatt hour. An appliance's kilowatt hours are its power in kilowatts multiplied by the hours it runs — so a 2,000 W appliance running for 30 minutes uses 1 kWh. Multiply that by your unit rate and you have the cost. The standing charge is not included here because you pay it whether or not you switch anything on.
What this assumes
- The appliance draws its rated power for the whole time it is on. Anything thermostatically controlled — ovens, heaters, fridges — cycles on and off, so the real figure is lower.
- Your unit rate stays flat all day. On a time-of-use tariff the same appliance costs materially different amounts depending on when you run it.
- A year is 52 weeks of identical use, which overstates seasonal appliances and understates ones you use in bursts.
- The rate filled in for you is an average that spreads fixed charges across a year's usage, so it sits above what one extra unit really costs. Entering the unit rate from your own bill gives a closer answer.
Questions
Is standby power actually worth worrying about?
It is worth an evening's attention once, not ongoing anxiety. The total is real money over a year, but it is concentrated in a handful of devices rather than spread evenly. Switching off a games console's rest mode and unplugging an old set-top box typically removes most of the cost; going round the house unplugging phone chargers achieves almost nothing.
Do phone chargers use power when nothing is plugged in?
Almost none. A modern charger left in the socket with no phone attached draws in the region of a tenth of a watt — pennies a year. The advice to unplug them dates from an era of much cruder power supplies. The devices worth chasing are the ones doing something in standby: recording, updating, staying on the network.
How do I find what is using standby power in my house?
A plug-in energy monitor costing a few pounds tells you in seconds per device, and is the only reliable way — the numbers are too small and too varied to guess. Work through the entertainment stack, the home office and anything with a clock or a network light, and you will usually find the whole standby load sitting in two or three items.
Does this include the standing charge?
No, and deliberately. The standing charge is a fixed daily fee for being connected at all, so it does not change when you run an appliance more or less. Including it would make every appliance look more expensive than it is.
Where do I find the wattage?
On the rating plate — usually a sticker on the back, base or inside the door — or in the manual. It is written as W or kW. If it only quotes amps, multiply amps by 230 to get watts.
Why is my bill higher than the total this gives?
Because this prices one appliance. Heating, hot water and the constant background draw of everything left plugged in usually make up more of a bill than the appliances people think to check.
Sources
- Ofgem — price cap unit rates — checked 2026-08-21
- Energy Saving Trust — quick tips to save energy — checked 2026-08-21
Rates from Eurostat for the second half of 2025. Last reviewed 3 September 2026.