Oct price cap increase likely to push energy bill to over £10k... for a family of 4...

Vincero

brook_heather said:

I bet the gaming PC is currently on High Performance power plan - try changing it to Balanced and the idle power consumption should drop closer to 50W.  If currently on High Performance then the cpu is running at maximum frequency even when it has nothing to do.   Balanced mode should still give you nearly the same performance with much better power saving.

Similar thoughts here... I wouldn't expect it to idle at 300W even if it had a rack of spinning hard drives, so long as the power profile allows the CPU to throttle down, and the graphics card isn't set to stay at full speed also.
Even then 300W is high - many CPUs when set to max performance modes but with an idle workload will still consume easily less than 100W... It's not just that it's not idling - it's either a collection of really inefficient components (PSU, older Intel&AMD CPUs, etc.), or it's running some background processes.

spikejrt

MariaAH said:

Per annum
3.3204 x 365 days = 1,211.95kWh x 28p = £339
1.1888 x 182 days = 216.36kWh x 28p = £60

Of course, working out the two charges when considering the Oct/Jan cap prices of ~55 or 65p a unit is a bit more of an eye opener!

chris_n

MariaAH said:

UPDATE:

TP link monitoring plugs in situ...one for the gaming PC and the other for the strip that has air con and monitors...

Gaming PC on but not doing too much = 300W
Gaming PC playing valorant = 332.8W
Monitors and Air con combined = 594.4W, or which 81W is monitors and 513.4 is aircon

Daily
PC (playing games) and monitors approx 8 hours a day = 413.8W x 8 = 3.3204kWh x 28p = 93p
Air con approx 2 hours a day = 594.4W x 2 = 1.1888kWh x 28p = 33p

Per annum
3.3204 x 365 days = 1,211.95kWh x 28p = £339
1.1888 x 182 days = 216.36kWh x 28p = £60

This is lower than I and others on this forum expected...

Will leave TP link plugs in place for 7 days to monitor...

Not lower than I was expecting but let's put it a different way, that is 15% of your consumption alone. I guess the PC is probably left on standby too, I know I never used to switch mine off ( back in the days where you had to build up steam to load windows in 5 mins). If you add your IMac to that you are over 20%, cars +/- 30% so that is now 50%. 

michaels

We have dug out the plug in energy monitor, I suspect I have the PC monitor on with my work laptop for about 12 hours a day / 5 days a week, it is running at 65w!  Laptop is about 15w - £60 / £15 per year at our current 31p/unit

American fridge freezer it is a pain to get at the plug socket so testing that may have to wait.  However I can put the monitor onto my son's 'gaming shed/garden room' which I suspect will be quite scary.  Also need to do the washing machine and dishwasher.

jak22

When idle a PC really should be well below 100W at the wall. You can double check what's really happening when idle in Task Manager or use tools like GPU-Z or Ryzen Master to confirm the GPU is around 20W idle and the CPU the same.

In game though a higher-end GPU will be getting towards 300W alone - which is even more at the wall as PSUs arent 100% efficient. You can reduce this by not running the GPU at 100% load - perhaps 80% with Vsync and use ECO mode on the CPU.

An OLED display in HDR - especially a TV - also draws a lot more than LED back-lit TVs from years ago. It's also tempting to turn on the surround system which adds even more to the bills.

Ive started using the Switch a lot more as it uses a fraction of this - just like a laptop would.

xeny

pochase said:

You can't lose much. If you don't need it any longer as a monitor,  it is still a smart switch, which is just £2 cheaper if you only buy a smart switch.

The other option is buy one of the dumb plug in watt meters and share it with friends or relatives. You tend to use those lots to start with and then very infrequently, so we've been loaning out the office one to staff for a few days at a time so people can assess where there bills are coming from.

xeny

brook_heather said:

I bet the gaming PC is currently on High Performance power plan - try changing it to Balanced and the idle power consumption should drop closer to 50W.  If currently on High Performance then the cpu is running at maximum frequency even when it has nothing to do.   Balanced mode should still give you nearly the same performance with much better power saving.

A colleague turned off an all core overclock and saved about 45W when the PC was idle. Particularly handy as it was summer 2020 and he was WFH pretty much full time in a flat that was was already so warm the last thing it needed was any extra heat.

inkydolphin

I hope the OP keeps updating. Is it crypto mining? It is just down to gaming? Is the whole internet being run from their house? Is the PC on standby using more than my entire house? Will claiming on business expenses help?

I partly jest of course, but it is a very interesting thread that I would like to see the conclusions of. It has inspired me to work out my "standby baseline", which can only be a good thing!

MariaAH

inkydolphin said:

I hope the OP keeps updating. Is it crypto mining? It is just down to gaming? Is the whole internet being run from their house? Is the PC on standby using more than my entire house? Will claiming on business expenses help?

I partly jest of course, but it is a very interesting thread that I would like to see the conclusions of. It has inspired me to work out my "standby baseline", which can only be a good thing!

I am so glad you are finding the thread interesting, and I genuinely appreciate all the contributions. Yes I will keep updating...to answer some of your questions...
- Definitely NOT crypto mining 
- TP link energy monitoring sockets are in use , one for the gaming PC, and the other for the strip that has the aircon and monitors. I have told my son the need to stay in place for 7 days to get a better overview of consumption.
- Once the 7 days is up monitoring the gaming PC and aircon, I will start moving them around the house to monitor other devices, eg fridge freezer
- Standby energy consumption is a concern - we have an electrician coming out next week so that we can try to establish which of the circuits is drawing most energy on standby. 
- Claiming on my son's business in the form of a home office rental agreement would help divert some of the cost to him/his business, BUT I would rather reduce energy consumption.

I have some questions that those following this thread may be able to answer:
1. Which devices on standby are likely to use the most energy? 
2. Can you change setting, eg on TV, to reduce standby energy use?
3. Do fully charged devices (laptops. mobile phones) carry in using energy if still plugged in after they are fully charged?
4. Do empty chargers still plugged in (after laptop/phone disconnected) still use energy?
5. Is it worthwhile turning our oven off at the wall when not in use? (rangemaster with induction hob, fan oven, smaller multiuse oven, grill and LED clock)

Thanks

QrizB

MariaAH said:

I have some questions that those following this thread may be able to answer:
1. Which devices on standby are likely to use the most energy? 
2. Can you change setting, eg on TV, to reduce standby energy use?
3. Do fully charged devices (laptops. mobile phones) carry in using energy if still plugged in after they are fully charged?
4. Do empty chargers still plugged in (after laptop/phone disconnected) still use energy?
5. Is it worthwhile turning our oven off at the wall when not in use? (rangemaster with induction hob, fan oven, smaller multiuse oven, grill and LED clock)

1. Devices on standby (and which have been built to comply with standards, not bought-on-the-internet-from-some-bloke-in-Shenzen) that are less than a decade old shouldn't be using any appreciable energy. Older ones might use tens of watts.
2. Yes; my DTT box, for example, lets you choose exactly how deeply it sleeps.
3. Not usually (check if they get hot, if they're cold they're not using energy).
4. As 3 above.
5. Unlikely, but give it a go in case there's an unnoticed fault that's causing it to use powet ehen it shouldn't.

As a *very* rough rule of thumb, things that get hot (ovens, heaters, hot tubs, high-end PCs) use lots of energy, things that stay cold don't.