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The amount of energy employees personally have control over may grow even more in the future. Plug loads — the energy used by anything plugged into an electric socket — represent about 10 percent to 30 percent of consumption in an average office building, says Nicholas Holt, a director at the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. With the adoption of smartphones and tablets, which office workers frequently charge at work, plug loads could become an even greater source of a building’s overall consumption, making it more important for employees to reduce consumption, he says.