Your Smartphone Is More Energy Efficient Than You Think

You may not have to feel so guilty about juicing up your smartphone every few hours, according to a new study conducted by OPower.

The study found that the electricity used to charge an iPhone 5 from 0% to full is almost inconsequential at $0.41 per year. The researchers compared the iPhone 5 to a Samsung Galaxy S III (the front-running Android device) and found similar rates â€" $0.53 per year.

Researchers say Samsung’s slightly higher costs can be attributed to the phone’s larger battery, but overall, OPower found that the “energy consumption of a modern smartphone is minuscule.”

But it’s not the individual rates that people should be concerned about, but the power of multiplication, head researcher for OPower, Barry Fischer tells Mashable.

OPower found the collective annual electricity consumption of the iPhone 5 sold within the next year will be equivalent to the annual electricity usage of 54,000 U.S. households. That’s roughly equivalent to the size of Cedar Rapids, IO.

That means that even though each smartphone may not seem to make a global impact, when taken together they can really add up.

SEE ALSO: Compare Energy Use With Opower Facebook App

But there could be a plus side to the turn toward mobile consumption, OPower found. Smartphones allow us to use less “clunky, energy-intensive devices,” meaning the savings from the entire country using phones instead of obsessively using tablets or PCs is substantial.

Nonetheless, the last 30 years has show excessive growth in appliances and electronics in the home. Large-screen TVs, game consoles, and desktop computers have doubled in energy usage since 1978, from 1.77 quadrillion Btu to 3.25 quadrillion Btu, according to OPower.

“Consumer electronics alone (i.e. not including larger appliances) now account for more than 13% of US home electricity use,” OPower writes in its blog. “This means that the amount of electricity used each year by TVs, computers, game consoles, and related items in US homes is equivalent to 20% more than the entire annual electricity consumption of Ohio.”

The EPA is working to bring stricter standards on energy efficiency to appliances like TVs and gaming devices, and of course being smart about gadget usage is a good way to minimize the energy footprint tech can leave. But OPower also dispelled an energy-saving-myth â€" that keeping your phone charger constantly plugged into the wall is a good way to quickly waste electricity.

Turns out, Fischer says, that Droid and iPhone chargers don’t consume “any meaningful amount of electicity” when plugged in to an outlet but not a device. The power draw, Fischer says, is only between 0 watts and 0.1 watts.

But, Fischer adds, there are plenty of “vampire devices” like set-top boxes and cable boxes that will suck power and energy even if TVs are turned off.

Tell us how you keep your home and electronics energy efficient in the comments below.