Vampire devices have become a bit of a thing recently with the increasing cost of electricity. We’ve been a bit sceptical – often seems to be used as a distraction by energy companies to shift focus away from their rocketing prices.

However thought we’d take a look at our microwave – it sits there in the kitchen permanently plugged in displaying a clock (when we can be bothered to set it). There is no benefit to having it always on – you can turn it on and start cooking pretty much instantly anyway.

So what are the numbers?

The microwave consumes 4W when inactive – doesn’t sound very much but that is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

4W x 24 hours x 365 days = 35 kWh a year

On our Octopus Go tariff that costs us just over £9 a year, if you are on a price cap tariff it’s around £12 a year. Just wasted, worse than that it’s a completely unnecessary 10.8 kg of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere – the equivalent of driving 50 miles in a 50 mpg petrol car.

We were surprised and will be turning it off at the wall in future. We won’t notice the saving but are starting to think attitudes to wasting energy really need to change. Our politicians in the UK aren’t doing much leading on the issue – change is going to have to come from individuals taking small steps where they can and campaigning to get more effective action from government.

Not got a power meter? Many smart plugs can measure power consumption so you can check what you leave on all the time. If you can save 40W that’s £120 a year on a price cap tariff.