standby electricity costs

elantan

thanks everyone for the advice,

our cameras are wired (i am almost certain ) the way they are wired is a bit strange ... but i can turn it off at a switch... hubby and myself were discussing this issue last night and he suggested we may have a wire going from the house to the garage that could be using power , this strange as it may seem may not in fact be far from the truth, when we moved into this house to begin with we found a cable lying on to roof of a kinda shelter thing ( not sure what the actual term is) that was both bare and live so the reality that we might have a calbe bare and live somewhere in the garage or on the roof of the garage isnt an impossibility...

i make sure the freezer is full .. tbh i try and squeeze things in as i try and batch cook alot

can i ask ...

1) how would i work out how many watts are in a unit of electricity?
2) silly silly q ... but is it that a 60 watt bulb burns 60 watts an hour? what makes a 60watt bulb a 60 watt bulb?


really appreciate all your help ... i am slowly learning to get on top of our consumption and alot of that is thanks to the help on here

penrhyn

1 unit = 1Kwh (1000wh)

A 60 watt bulb will consume 1 unit of electricity in 1000/60 = 16.6 hours.

A conventional light bulb has a filament which resists the flow of electricity which causes it to heat up and produce light and heat.

Watts (power) = Volts x Amps, so 60 = 230 x A Amps solves to .26 Amps.
Voltage / Amps = ohms
230 /.26 = 885 ohms.

What makes a 60 watt light bulb? One that has a filament with a resistance of 885 ohms. ( assuming a 230volt mains supply)

elantan

thanks ... will now try and figure things out ... my brain will hurt that much i know lol

Goldensock

victor2 wrote: »

Modern TVs on standby use next to nothing.

Totally incorrect...I have connected a energy monitor to a TV and put it on & then switched it to standby and it was using the same amount on standby as the laptop was while charging.

Golden

victor2

Goldensock wrote: »

Totally incorrect...I have connected a energy monitor to a TV and put it on & then switched it to standby and it was using the same amount on standby as the laptop was while charging.

Golden

Maybe I should have qualified "next to nothing." We have 2 different brand LCD TVs. The bigger one uses 78W when on and 0.2W in standby - measured with a monitor which only goes down to 0.2W. But it shows the other TV as using nothing in standby. Can't be true, but it's very small.
So, at my energy prices last year, it was costing me in the region of 20p a year to leave the TV in standby. Of course prices have gone up, but even if it costs me £1 a year, that is still next to nothing compared to everything else in my house.

Cardew

Goldensock wrote: »

Totally incorrect...I have connected a energy monitor to a TV and put it on & then switched it to standby and it was using the same amount on standby as the laptop was while charging.

Golden

No it is you that are absolutely incorrect. Modern TVs use virtually nothing on standby.

Virtually every modern TV has a standby consumption of well under 1 watt.

Look at this site listing all TVs on sale in UK

http://www.sust-it.net/energy_saving.php?cat=3&ss=37

The consumption ranges upwards from 0.15 watts( for a 37 inch Phillips LED) with the vast majority well under 1 watt.

So even if a set using 1 watt was left on standby 24/7 for 365 days it would cost less than £1 in a year,

All TV's in my house, including a 10+ year CRT Sony, use under 1 watt.

The major manufacturers all signed up years ago to reduce standby wattage to under 1 watt.

Are you sure that it was just the TV consumption you were measuring and not, say external amp, speakers etc.

Also some TV's have a setting where you can send TV signals to another source e.g. USB to a HDD and this means the TV set is on, but not the screen or speakers, but it is indicating standby. This happens without anything connected to those outputs as well.

chris1973

I have connected a energy monitor to a TV and put it on & then switched it to standby and it was using the same amount on standby as the laptop was while charging.

Energy Monitors are totally inadequate at accurately measuring low (<40w) consumptions, these monitors are made for around £5 on mass production lines in the Far East and have no calibration certification. Its a bit like comparing the standard of a surgeon doing brain surgery with a 50p magnifying glass instead of his £200,000 medical viewer

I measured a phone charger with one once, which registered over 40W on an Owl monitor, measuring the same charger on a precision multimeter, recently calibrated, recorded 2.3W - far more accurate to its 'real' figure.

Since most standby equipment will use well under 40W, comparing them with cheap plastic 'give-away' energy monitors is meaningless.

To echo what Cardew said above, Due to various EU-led green energy directives coming into force, most modern domestic equipment now has to be below a certain wattage when on stand-by. As a point of fact, at work, we are now unable to supply even low current goods with linear power adaptors, due to one of these directives, and now we ship Switch Mode versions, which meet the directives. The cost of this, is of course passed on to the consumer, but at least they'll save about half a watt!.

Here is one stand-by directive which is currently being phased in from 2008 and is expected to be well under way with even greater requirements from next year

Regulation 1275/2008 sets out the requirements for stand by mode and off mode of household electrical and electronic equipment. The list of equipment it applies to covers most of the things you have plugged in to power sockets in your home, including computers. The regulation sets limits for the energy consumed by equipment when it is in stand by mode and off mode. As far as I can tell, the limits apply to equipment that is sold in the EU. The requirements will be phased in over 4 years, starting in December 2008.
Here is a summary of the requirements.
1 year after the regulation is in force (December 2009):

• Power consumption in off mode must be 1 Watt or less;
• Power consumption in stand by mode which allows reactivation must be 1 Watt or less;
• Power consumption in stand by mode which allows reactivation and displays information (such as a clock) must be 2 Watts or less.

4 years after the regulation is in force (December 2012):

• Power consumption in off mode must be 0.5 Watts or less;
• Power consumption in stand by mode which allows reactivation must be 0.5 Watts or less;
• Power consumption in stand by mode which allows reactivation and displays information (such as a clock) must be 1 Watt or less.

The regulation also provides that equipment that is connected to mains power must have a stand by or off mode, and must also have a power management function which automatically switches the device into stand by mode or off mode when it is not being actively used.

Of course there will always be older appliances which were manufactured before 2009, which wont meet that criteria, but even so, the standby consumption on these is usually less than a low energy lightbulb - worst case.

elantan

Thanks all I'm reading and learning here ... Another question if I may ... Gas related this time ... Would anyone say that 56 KWH of gas consumption in a 3 hour period is heavy ? I have been keeping an eye on both electricity and gas and today put my heating on from 5-8pm I read the meter before I put it on and read it after ... And it has went up 5 units ... I am 11.2 Kwh per unit ... Is this consumption normal ?

rogerblack

elantan wrote: »

Thanks all I'm reading and learning here ... Another question if I may ... Gas related this time ... Would anyone say that 56 KWH of gas consumption in a 3 hour period is heavy ?

It depends, this is about 18kW of heat.
If you have a well-insulated flat, then yes, very.
If you have a larger, poorly insulated home, then no.
Heating will be very expensive for the first few hours until the temperature equalises throughout the structure.
You'll get a better idea if you put it on for 3 hours, then measure, and measure again 3 hours after.
Gas consumption will be (about ) proportional to the difference between the inside and outside temps.

So if it's 5C outside, 20C in, there is 15C difference.
If your heating uses (once it's heated up) 10kWh/hour to maintain this difference, then you need 10kW/15C = 600W per C to heat your home.
If the temperature outside drops to -10, the overall difference goes to 30, and the amount you need is 600*30 = 18000W.

elantan

Thanks ... Will try and get my head around that as well ... Its deff head hurting all this working out isn't it ? ... I reckon the energy companies know this and act accordingly lol

We live in a poorly insulated ( that's a whole other thread ... But we've tried to feal with it honest ) detached bungalow with a half basement ( if you know what I mean )