Standby costs

wild666

getmore4less said:

no smart meter yet

using 35p/kWh

Some items  will need longer term checks for full days or months to get better estimates

I am using TAPO P110 with energy monitor they use a around 1w,  4.3kWh annual, around £1.50 each.

if using TAPO P110 as a switch no point if the device(or cluster) is using 1w or less.

annual ignoring use time for worst case.

Washing machine (not used everyday, some days multiple times)
Ours has a dial if set to off it uses around ~0.7Wh day.
on standby it goes up to ~44Wh day
Remembering to turn it to off after use will save up to ~£5.50
The big savings here are cooler washes and using the eco modes

Tumble Dryer 
No off option, deep standby around 8Wh a day ~£1 a year.
Not worth the hassle of a switch

Battery charger(AA,AAA etc, not used a lot, weeks apart sometimes)
this was drawing 2w, ~17.5kWh(~£6) year always on an extension with other things
Now on a easy access switched supply 

PC/monitor cluster.
PC sleep and standby on the monitors, speakers 
draw around 15w  ~130kWh(~£46).
Now hibernate and powered off
When in use around 1kWh a day from the cluster.

Same era PC draws 2w when off (plugged in) not used much, now on a manual switch

New PC  
This is an always on to do the monitoring.
0.2-0.25kWh day. idles around 7w-10w
going to add more monitoring soon
This will also go up when everyday activity is transferred from the regular use PC above
estimate saving is more than 50% on PC, monitors will stay the same

Entertainment(need to do individuals)
TV(OLED), sound bar/wireless sub, VM box, router, NowTV box, firestick...
(Soundbar Bluetooth rears are different sockets)

When away background use was around 16w with a 2hr burst to 22w, daily around 0.4Kwh 
TV off still power, Sound bar and sub nowtv unplugged)

could squeeze, potential to get the ~£1 week down when away 

When all on the background standby is around 24w-36w guestimate for 24hr  0.5-0.6kWh
a bit more so also needs a squeeze, router needs to be on others for their update windows. 

When in use total draw is mainly in the 100w-300w giving daily use range of 1kWh-2.5kWh

Based on 2kWh and 40weeks use that's going to hit 560kWh ~£200(bit of a shock).

---------------------------------------
2 other big regular users are the Freezer and Fridge/Freezer.
Estimating annual ~225kWh(£80) for the freezer and ~450kWh(£160) for the FF
need to do longer runs on those especially the FF for a payback calculation, newer ones are better  )

Still got loads of items to monitor
want to reduce the ~4kWh a day background use
Find areas to save for the daily which is average just over 10kWh last period when we were away 30 out of 90 days.

The biggest use of electric comes from my freezer a 177cm thing this month it's used, if I estimate tomorrows usage , 19.89kWh, that's around 641.6 Watts per day. I've got smart plugs, with energy monitoring on the majority of my electrical appliances, the exceptions being the kettle, microwave and washer.  

Max68

MattMattMattUK said:

Max68 said:

My PC has had an issue with the monitor showing no connection upon boot so in the last two weeks or so I have just been leaving it on all the time rather than shutting it down and I have seen no difference in energy usage although I don't have a smart meter.  

A PC left asleep will use around 100W an hour if it is a full desktop, if it is an AIO it could be down to about 50W an hour, so 1.2-2.4kWh a day which is within a range that could be masked by day to day usage.

Max68 said:

For a week I was turning kettle, oven and microwave off at the plug as a little experiment and again saw no difference but again no smart meter so only going on kwh per day.

The kettle will use nothing when not in use, the oven might use <1w to power the clock light if it has one, the microwave something similar so very unlikely to show any differences at all.

Max68 said:

I've dramatically cut down electric usage in the last year or so but it's things like turning lights off unless I am in that room or most dramatically not using the central heating as much has been the big saver as gas boilers still use electricity, plus of course not using washing machine, dish washer and dryer as much!

Modern LED lights barely use anything, 3-8W is the typical range, the pumps for gas boilers do use electricity, but not very much. Washing at 20/30c is more than adequate for most things so that is a good saving and the dishwasher is also pretty low, however if you have a tumble dryer that will use a huge amount of energy. The best way to work out where the money goes is anything that generates heat, if it gets hot is using a lot of power.

I'm pretty sure it's my cutting down on my washing machine (also washing on lower temp) and cutting right back on the dryer that has brought my usage down.  Only a year and a half ago I was using anything between 250 and 370 odd Kwh per month of electricity but since last May once Octopus had sorted all my bills to monthly, the most I have used is 195 kwh and that's this month.  How I have got down from say using 379 kwh in April 21 to averaging about 180ish now I have absolutely no idea.  It's probably wearing dressing gowns a lot so clothes washes are once a week max with very sporadic use of the tumble dryer.  Whereas I could go from 258 one month to 342 the next is bizarre considering since May it has gone 193, 193, 183, 181, 179, 172, 173, 194, 195 so no idea where I am making these savings but I'm glad I am!!   

Re my PC staying on I read it could cost around £25 a year more than turning it off.  Considering there is an issue when I turn it off with the monitor not kicking in I'd rather pay that £25 than whatever the repair bill will be which would certainly be more than £25!

getmore4less

With washers water heating is the big hit.
Once you hit that the secondary savings are more difficult to get.

I am measuring various options with in cycle data points not just totals.
Surprised when a 40c regular wash used more than a 60c full eco wash.

The eco washes seem to heat up once and use less water which is probably the main saving over regular cycles that keep the water hot.

Our washer hits around 1kWh for long cotton 60c eco,  30c washes go under 400Wh.

Out TD is a heat pump and hitting around 1kWh for full loads when used, can live with that for the less convenient alternative,  stuff like socks and pants a pain to hang up.

Need more runs of both to get sample size up and try different settings.

I may end up doing more controlled runs with the same batch of washing

Some machine manuals have more energy use data for their programs, the 2 on EU product fiche are a starter.

When it comes to drying having an outside space sheltered from rain can increase your drying days.

Inside drying is ok in our house as it is relatively dry not everyone has that option.