OT: Household stanby power consumption
Tim Downie
household power consumtion due to devices left on standyby. (Energy saving
trust)
This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it? Was it ever true? I've sure
I've read about it being debunked somewhere. Anyone know where I might find
a more reliable figure?
Tim
Old Codger
The government reckons about 10%, Wikipedia says Americans use about 5%
but the University of Strathclyde
(http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Standby.htm)
has a figure of 13%.
About 10% is therefore probably a reasonable overall average.
--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field
What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make
people believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]
Graham.
--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%
"Tim Downie" <timdow...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:iia1eu$k1r$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
From "Welcome to your npower home energy monitor"
Q. Did you know that items left on standby still use around 85% energy to keep them powered down? (A "sic" seems appropriate here).
A. Simply switching off and unplugging items on standby could help you save £30 a year
From "Your npower home energy monitor user guide"
Q. How much energy does the npower home energy monitor use?
The display uses less than 12 watt hours (or approximately 1.2p) a month to run - that's
less than making a single piece of toast!
They included an exclamation point presumably to indicate incredulity that anyone
should think npower's energy monitors don't use superior power saving technology not available to other devices whilst on standby.
Andy Burns
> From "Welcome to your npower home energy monitor"
>
> Q. Did you know that items left on standby still use around 85% energy to keep them powered down?
> A. Simply switching off and unplugging items on standby could help you save Ł30 a year
So by their logic, if 85% of my bill is Ł30.00, my whole bill should
only be Ł35.29 ...
Tabby
Such figures are horse hockey.
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Wallwart_energy_use
is more realistic.
NT
Tim W
"Tim Downie" <timdow...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:iia1eu$k1r$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
There was some clown on the radio the other day saying something like "It's
important to lead a green lifestyle but it's the little things that count:
It's alright to be a total petrolhead as long as you remember to switch your
phone charger off at night."
Tim w
Steve Firth
> This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it?
Yes, when Which? reported on measurements of standby power of TVs they
stated that the typical consumption of a TV on standby was 0.2W. When
switched on the TV used 100W. So standby consumed 0.2% of full-on, not
10%.
Energy Star, which most devices conform to, mandates 1% maximum on
standby.
> Was it ever true?
No, the highest real world figure that I have seen quoted came to 5%.
Still the watermelons don't need objectivity, they have Gahd on their
side.
Andrew Gabriel
I think all my products are well under 1W standby.
The only things I have which aren't are remote switches intended to
save energy by switching products off rather than standby, and these
consume over 1W each, i.e. much more than the standby power they're
saving. (I'm actually using them for something else, or I would have
chucked them out or returned them as unfit for purpose.)
One of the worst items you are still going to find are set-top boxes,
which have notoriously high standby consumption (often it is no
different from full on power consumption). I don't have one.
If you have a TV or monitor older than about 12 years, they can have
standby consumption of 8 or so watts, and older than 8 years could
be a couple of watts. Any newish TV or monitor will be much less than
1W.
Some wall warts can consume quite a bit, and for older transformer
based ones, this is no less when there's no load. Modern switched
mode ones tend to be very good, particularly mobile phone ones.
I struggle to think that 10% would be true.
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
John Rumm
> average household power consumtion due to devices left on standyby.
> (Energy saving trust)
I suppose it depends on what you mean standby usage... for example do
you include things like fridges/freezers, the central heating, or
night/security lights or other stuff that you never turn off into the
mix. That might add a fair deal to the 24/7 consumption and yet be
nothing to do with phone chargers, and TVs etc showing little red lights
etc.
--
Cheers,
John.
/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/
Skipweasel
and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk says...
> One of the worst items you are still going to find are set-top boxes,
> which have notoriously high standby consumption (often it is no
> different from full on power consumption). I don't have one.
>
Ours drank power - until I installed a switch so it and everything else
(telly, DVD, 2xPC, 2xmonitor, printer, HiFi, 2xlamps with wall-warts,
2xPC speakers, modem, router, wireless bridge) all go off a night.
That was well worth it - the power meter shows 110W on standby. And, of
course, nothing when the switch is off for ten hours overnight.
--
Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.
robert
My older SKY digiboxes showed no difference in power consumption between
ON and Standby - so much for the auto standby setting.
However a far newer SKY digibox was worth putting into standby .
Trouble with switching these things off is that they dont power up to
the same state or channel - especially SKY boxes.
Of course all this energy isnt totally wasted at this time of year - it
saves the central heating working quite as hard !
pete
> Graham. wrote:
>
>> From "Welcome to your npower home energy monitor"
>>
>> Q. Did you know that items left on standby still use around 85% energy to keep them powered down?
>
> So by their logic, if 85% of my bill is £30.00, my whole bill should
> only be £35.29 ...
Those sorts of statements aren't meant to stand rigorous scrutiny (i.e.
be considered by a numerate persion). They are meant to appeal to the
1 ... 2 .... many crowd on an emotional level.
If people do try arguing with you, using that kind of "data", just respond
by saying "I'm an iconoclast, it doesn't apply to me". They'll probably
think that's some sort of religion and will change the subject very
quickly in case they offend your beliefs :)
--
http://thisreallyismyhost.99k.org/0120110219024313355.php
Tabby
wrote:
> In article <iia1eu$k1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> "Tim Downie" <timdownie2...@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>
> > I see that the figure of 10% is still being bandied around as the average
> > household power consumtion due to devices left on standyby. (Energy saving
> > trust)
>
> > This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it? Was it ever true? I've
snip
> Some wall warts can consume quite a bit, and for older transformer
> based ones, this is no less when there's no load. Modern switched
> mode ones tend to be very good, particularly mobile phone ones.
Iron lump warts consume a lot less on no load than full load, just
like any transformer. Power consumption doesn't drop down to anywhere
near 1% off load, but the total consumption of these old warts in a
household is miniscule.
NT
Mike Barnes
>Some wall warts can consume quite a bit, and for older transformer
>based ones, this is no less when there's no load. Modern switched
>mode ones tend to be very good, particularly mobile phone ones.
Indeed and there's a very simple test. If it doesn't feel warm, it's not
wasting appreciable energy.
--
Mike Barnes
m...@privacy.net
and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote:
> If you have a TV or monitor older than about 12 years, they can have
> standby consumption of 8 or so watts, and older than 8 years could
> be a couple of watts. Any newish TV or monitor will be much less than
> 1W.
Computers can be notorious. My son's took 26W on standby, as compared to the
35 watts my server in the garage takes when running. His TV,moniter and radio
only took 2W in total. Before anyone comments, these figures are watts, not
VA.
I've now managed to persuade him to switch it all off at the wall when not in
use.
--
B Thumbs
Change lycos to yahoo to reply
dennis@home
"Steve Firth" <%steve%@malloc.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1jw1bsg.13bg1j01ppwbv2N%%steve%@malloc.co.uk...
> Tim Downie <timdow...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it?
>
> Yes, when Which? reported on measurements of standby power of TVs they
> stated that the typical consumption of a TV on standby was 0.2W. When
> switched on the TV used 100W. So standby consumed 0.2% of full-on, not
> 10%.
>
> Energy Star, which most devices conform to, mandates 1% maximum on
> standby.
>
>> Was it ever true?
>
> No, the highest real world figure that I have seen quoted came to 5%.
Yes, but only if you integrate the times its in use/standby.
A phone charger is charging the phone for about two hours a week, the rest
of the week its doing nothing but wasting energy.
Therefore you need to multiply your standby power by about 50 to get the
actual waste.
TVs are probably used for a few hours a day so the waste is actually less
than a phone for modern sets.
m...@privacy.net
Tabby <meow...@care2.com> wrote:
> Iron lump warts consume a lot less on no load than full load, just
> like any transformer. Power consumption doesn't drop down to anywhere
> near 1% off load, but the total consumption of these old warts in a
> household is miniscule.
>
The ones here are much less efficient on low load than switched mode ones.
Noticibly warmer and higher reading on wattmeters. It's a pity switched mode
ones usually chuck out so much electromagnetic rubbish instead of heat.
m...@privacy.net
Mike Barnes <mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Indeed and there's a very simple test. If it doesn't feel warm, it's not
> wasting appreciable energy.
>
That's exactly how I assess my wall warts. It's not as good a test on larger
equipment though. My printer took as much as my hottest wall wart, but wasn't
noticibly warm.
news1...@moo.uklinux.net
> Energy Star, which most devices conform to, mandates
> 1% maximum on standby.
But if the device spends 10 times longer on standby
than in use, the energy_used_on_standby/energy_used_when_on
figure can easily be 10%. E.g., if you watch 2.4 hours
of TV a day...
#Paul
Man at B&Q
> Tim Downie <timdownie2...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it?
>
> Yes, when Which? reported on measurements of standby power of TVs they
> stated that the typical consumption of a TV on standby was 0.2W. When
> switched on the TV used 100W. So standby consumed 0.2% of full-on, not
> 10%.
The 10% figure was the proportion of household usage due to items left
on stabdby, not the usage of individual devices.
> Energy Star, which most devices conform to, mandates 1% maximum on
> standby.
>
> > Was it ever true?
>
> No, the highest real world figure that I have seen quoted came to 5%.
Quite a few Freeview STBs use far more than 5% of full power when in
"standby".
MBQ
Ronald Raygun
> Graham. wrote:
>
>> From "Welcome to your npower home energy monitor"
>>
>> Q. Did you know that items left on standby still use around 85% energy to
>> keep them powered down? A. Simply switching off and unplugging items on
>> standby could help you save £30 a year
>
> So by their logic, if 85% of my bill is £30.00, my whole bill should
> only be £35.29 ...
Yes, approximately, but if you're trying to argue that because your whole
bill is in fact substantially more than that, then what they claim must be
wrong, then it's actually *your* logic that's flawed.
There's nothing wrong with their *logic* as such. What's wrong (I suggest)
is their *premise*, i.e. the 85% figure does seem ridiculously high.
Let's just run with the ridiculous 85% figure for the moment (you can
always substitute a more reasonable figure later). Let's say that the
average standby-capable device spends 3 hours a day in use, and 21 hours
on standby. It therefore uses a long term average (3*100% + 21*85%)/24 or
86.9% of full power. If instead you switched it off completely when not
in use, it would use a long term average of 3*100%/24 or 12.5% of full
power. The saving is 74.4%, and if this corresponds to £30 a year, then
your whole annual bill should actually be £40.34.
But remember, this is only in respect of those devices which have a
standby capability. You do also power other stuff!
Ronald Raygun
> I see that the figure of 10% is still being bandied around as the average
> household power consumtion due to devices left on standyby. (Energy saving
> trust)
>
> This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it? Was it ever true?
It rather depends on what is meant. 10% of what? I think it would be
a huge exaggeration to say that 10% of the whole household bill is wasted
keeping stuff on standby.
It would sound a bit more credible if it meant that putting a device into
standby would reduce *its* consumption to 10% (instead of to 0% if it were
totally off). Or would it?
BartC
"Mike Barnes" <mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote in message
news:enqrXHKL...@g52lk5g23lkgk3lk345g.invalid...
My doorbell transformer feels warm, but I measured the consumption at 2-3W.
(About the same cost as a couple of PP3s per year, but more reliable; the
first battery I tried died after half-a-dozen test presses.)
--
bartc
BartC
"Ronald Raygun" <no....@localhost.localdomain> wrote in message
news:3tb2p.56832$xu5....@newsfe04.ams2...
10% of my quarterly electric bill would be £10, about 65kWh. That equates to
a standby consumption throughout the house, of about 30W, night and day.
That is not unlikely, even considering the devices would sometimes be in use
so not on standby. I think just my V+ box, when I had one, consumed 27W in
standby, and it couldn't be turned off if it was set to record programs.
On the other hand, put another way, going to the trouble turning off
*everything* at the socket when not in use, might save £40 a year. Hardly a
fortune.
--
Bartc
Steve Firth
Yeah, let's make up some numbers. That's what the melons do whenver they
want to tell others what to do.
I note you carefully snipped the part where I pointed out that the
actual usage on standby is 0.2% for a typical device. Typical
greenybollocks - go for the largest number possible.
ARWadsworth
So the solution is to leave the appliances on all the time, that way there
will be no standby wastage.
--
Adam
Andrew Gabriel
Tabby <meow...@care2.com> writes:
> On Feb 2, 12:27�am, and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel)
> wrote:
>> Some wall warts can consume quite a bit, and for older transformer
>> based ones, this is no less when there's no load. Modern switched
>> mode ones tend to be very good, particularly mobile phone ones.
>
> Iron lump warts consume a lot less on no load than full load, just
> like any transformer.
I agree with you for very old ones, but not slightly more recent ones.
I suspect the problem with newer ones built as cheaply as possible
is that off-load, they're hitting saturation, because the transformer
core has been skimped on.
However, in almost all cases nowadays, switched-mode look to be
comming in even cheaper than iron lump ones, so hopefully the iron
lump ones will quickly vanish.
Graham.
"Man at B&Q" <manat...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1d57dc24-a147-409a...@h19g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
Standard Sky boxes (not sure about + and HD) consume >90% of their "on"
power on standby.
Here are some actual measurements I just made on my old Grundig GDS200
Line voltage presently 241V
Standby
83mA (20.003W)
Power on
87mA (20.967W)
A difference of 964mW !!!!!
They have no right to call it standby, but you may have noticed on their "barker" channel
they make a big deal about being able to light all the homes in Exeter with the saving.
--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%
Andy Champ
>
> There was some clown on the radio the other day saying something like "It's
> important to lead a green lifestyle but it's the little things that count:
> It's alright to be a total petrolhead as long as you remember to switch your
> phone charger off at night."
>
Sounds like Clarkson. He _intends_ to be silly.
Andy
John Rumm
> Here are some actual measurements I just made on my old Grundig GDS200
>
>
> Line voltage presently 241V
>
> Standby
> 83mA (20.003W)
>
> Power on
> 87mA (20.967W)
>
> A difference of 964mW !!!!!
> They have no right to call it standby, but you may have noticed on their "barker" channel
> they make a big deal about being able to light all the homes in Exeter with the saving.
There have been some sat boxes that actually use more power in standby,
since they carry on doing exactly the same, but then also turn on a LED
that says "standby" beside it!
Steve Firth
>
> So the solution is to leave the appliances on all the time, that way there
> will be no standby wastage.
Or leave it on all the time and the greens can "prove" that standby
wastes 100% of the power.
news1...@moo.uklinux.net
Although, to be fair, if the device was never used, and served
no purpose, 100% of any power it did use _would_ have been wasted.
#Paul
Man at B&Q
> Steve Firth <%ste...@malloc.co.uk> wrote:
> > ARWadsworth <adamwadswo...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > So the solution is to leave the appliances on all the time, that way there
> > > will be no standby wastage.
> > Or leave it on all the time and the greens can "prove" that standby
> > wastes 100% of the power.
>
> Although, to be fair, if the device was never used, and served
> no purpose, 100% of any power it did use _would_ have been wasted.
It's warming the house. At some times of year 100% of the "waste" may
be useful heat. Over the year it's going to be a lot less than 100%
wastage.
MBQ
Rob
> On Feb 1, 11:59 pm, %ste...@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) wrote:
>> Tim Downie<timdownie2...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> This has got to be total b*llocks hasn't it?
>>
>> Yes, when Which? reported on measurements of standby power of TVs they
>> stated that the typical consumption of a TV on standby was 0.2W. When
>> switched on the TV used 100W. So standby consumed 0.2% of full-on, not
>> 10%.
>
> The 10% figure was the proportion of household usage due to items left
> on stabdby, not the usage of individual devices.
>
>> Energy Star, which most devices conform to, mandates 1% maximum on
>> standby.
>>
>>> Was it ever true?
>>
>> No, the highest real world figure that I have seen quoted came to 5%.
>
> Quite a few Freeview STBs use far more than 5% of full power when in
> "standby".
>
> Standard Sky boxes (not sure about + and HD) consume>90% of their "on"
> power on standby.
>
Indeed - my Pure Evoke 1XT radio uses about the same on as standby, and
the Virgin/Samsung STB isn't much better. My measurements, so usual caveats.
Rob
Ronald Raygun
True enough, it may be useful heat, but it's expensive useful heat.
Each kWh of wasted electricity saves you burning 1.3 kWh of gas,
or thereabouts, depending on how efficient your boiler is. But the
cost of the electricity you "waste" is still several times that of
the gas you save.
--
Withoutabix
The Natural Philosopher
coal or nuclear power..which are not going up as fast as gas is.
Mind you, windpower is set to triple the price of electricity and
mandate the use of MORE gas,
Ronald Raygun
> Ronald Raygun wrote:
>>
>> Each kWh of wasted electricity saves you burning 1.3 kWh of gas,
>> or thereabouts, depending on how efficient your boiler is. But the
>> cost of the electricity you "waste" is still several times that of
>> the gas you save.
>
> Not so much these days, as about 50% of the electricity is supplied from
> coal or nuclear power..which are not going up as fast as gas is.
I can only go by the prices I see. My supplier charges 10.28p/kWh for
electricity and 2.685p/kWh for gas (inc VAT, tier 2 rates). That's a
factor of 3.8, which in my book still qualifies as "several".
The Natural Philosopher
Dont have gas here.
Tabby
I daresay there are some items for which this is true. But equally
there are plenty that are only plugged in & switched on when actually
used, for these there is 0% standby power waste.
Then there are things that are used a higher percentage of the time,
such as tvs, routers in busy households etc.
NT
Ronald Raygun
But the appliances which have standby modes are generally connected to
the normal 24h supply, so the power you waste on them will not be charged
at the cheap off peak rate, but at full price.
For the purposes of this remark I'm assuming something which may or may
not be true, namely that you have two meters: One off peak to power
storage heaters etc, and one full price to power everything else.
If instead you have a single meter which charges everything at the cheaper
rate during off peak hours, then part (30%?) of your waste will be cheaper,
but these tariffs generally charge you *more than* full price during the
day, so overall it will perhaps cancel out.
> Dont have gas here.
That's too bad. Then in your case the factor is smaller, and you can
feel less guilty about wasting power from standby devices than the
rest of us.
Richard Russell
> Line voltage presently 241V
>Standby
> 83mA (20.003W)
>Power on
> 87mA (20.967W)
Multiplying voltage by current gives VA *not* Watts! It's possible that
the power factor changes significantly between 'standby' and 'on', such
that the true power consumption increases more than your calculation would
suggest.
Richard.
http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/
Andy Wade
> But the appliances which have standby modes are generally connected to
> the normal 24h supply, so the power you waste on them will not be charged
> at the cheap off peak rate, but at full price.
Only if you're on a really ancient off-peak tariff (pre-dating the
Economy 7 'white meter' tariffs that came in in the late 1960s) - and I
doubt whether such tariffs & metering exist any more. For normal
Economy 7 and Economy 10 deals *all* consumption is metered at the
off-peak rate(s) between the designated times, so the cost of standby
usage is correspondingly reduced.
> For the purposes of this remark I'm assuming something which may or may
> not be true, namely that you have two meters: One off peak to power
> storage heaters etc, and one full price to power everything else.
No-one, or hardly anyone, will have such an arrangement nowadays. Like
the old pre-WW2 lighting and power tariffs such schemes encourage
dangerous improvised wiring to cheat the system.
> If instead you have a single meter which charges everything at the cheaper
> rate during off peak hours, then part (30%?) of your waste will be cheaper,
> but these tariffs generally charge you *more than* full price during the
> day, so overall it will perhaps cancel out.
You will gain, but with the normal few watts of total standby usage it
won't amount to much.
--
Andy