How many of you thought that headline was going to lead into a Brexit story? Well… GOTCHA! This is definitely not related, unless you Brits are frantically using your devices to vent your anger on Facebook and Twitter of course.
No, this is about how us Brits waste around £900 million a year charging our electrical devices. That’s a lot quite frankly. When compared to the amount of energy used to power laptops and desktops in homes, the results were negligible. People are using just as much power now to charge their portable devices.
The amount of power to charge your phones and tablets also roughly equates to the amount of energy used to keep the UK cities of Birmingham and Bradford.
Row.co.uk were commissioned by data analysts to complete the study and have found that it costs around £33 per household per year in the UK. Okay, when it’s put that way it’s not that much. But still, £33 can go towards a large pizza from Dominoes three times a year. Just saying, what would you prefer?
Analysts have stated that this rise in the British charging fund is because of the rise of smartphones and tablets per household. Around nine out of 10 UK adults own a smartphone which has increased due to popularity since 2005 according to Ofcom.
The figure came from data released by the Department of Energy, which was further divided by the 27.7million homes in the UK.
Ofcom went on further to explain that since 2010 with the release of the iPad, the demand for having a tablet in the house has risen by 52%. That works out roughly to nearly 15 million tablets in UK households.
The only objects and possessions in your homes which require more power to run than your portables is the fridge-freezer, washing machine and television. There is a huge demand for power to keep Britain’s portable devices alive and demands more energy to be created by the National Grid.
Richard Waters of Row.co.uk said: “We all plug our gadgets in on a daily basis with little thought of the cost. Our analysis reveals for the first time how much Britain is paying for keeping our phones and tablets powered up. It also shows how lifestyle changes affect the way we consume electricity and the amount we need to power our lives.”
