This term describes the energy that is consumed by any electronic device (think computer equipment, televisions, gadget chargers, etc.) that’s plugged into a socket. A vampire or phantom load is the amount of energy a device consumes while in standby mode or “off” mode, but plug load is the device’s energy requirements for actual operation. It’s thought that in the USA there are 3-4 billion individual devices that account for about 10% of total annual electricity use and approximately 10-15% of commercial electricity use. That’s a lot of juice.