On, Standby, Off ... Are Electric Cost savings possible?

Grazzier

Ok, so Off means off. Thats a given. However It would be useful if anyone could enlighten as to what the likely cost savings might be of various devices in the home.

A) TV and associated sky box - The red light shows me that the TV is in standby mode. The orange light on the sky box tells me that it is in standby mode. So clearly they are pulling power, but is it a lot of cost, or next-to-none.

Microwave  -  The microwave in our house is idle for probably 90% of its life. It has an electronic clock, so even when not in use it still pulls power to run the clock. I turn off the main wall switch for this DEVICE.

C) Alexa box - There is no standby light on this device, but I know it must be in standby so that when we use the trigger word to access it, it awakens and responds. Nothing can be done regarding powersaving here, other than turn it off. Not practicle.

D) Washing machine / Dishwasher   -   Neither of these units in our house have electronic displays at all, just simply the LED lights showing its progress thru the programs when running. When programs complete they simply turn themselves off. 

E) Desktop PC   -  With modern computers the power saving settings can be adjusted by users to whatever suits, but I find that by default the computer (MS Windows) winds-down (sleeps) many items in its known environment/periphery after a time period of inactivity. As the user moves the mouse one can hear the devices spinning-up, or re-activating. I wonder how much actual saving could be gained here by turning the PC off ?

F) Desktop PC Speakers   -   These are turned off by switch for most of their lives. 

G) Desktop PC Monitors  -   Again, MS Windows will turn screens off after a period of inactivity, which can be manually set, but as the monitors show an orange standby light I know that they are not off, just sleeping. Is there much of a saving here by actually switching them off, or is standby via the computer satisfactory ?

H) Desktop Printer - this is switched off at the switch for most of its life.

I)  Internet router   -   I would guess that everyones router is never turned off by switch, and there is no standby, but do these boxes draw a lot of power or very little ?

J) Fridge / Freezer   -  Neither of these devices in our home have electronic displays of any kind, just the power light on each. I guess the power draw is fairly high on these in order to keep their respective internal temperatures. 

K)  Main Cooker  -  Our main cooker has an electronic display, when not in use it will be the clock showing. I turn this off at the main switch, and just ignore the clock when turned on.

We have no electric clocks in the house. Our mobile phones and watches (and Alexa box) will furnish us with the time if needed.

Any ideas on potential extra savings appreciated, or indeed any numbers on how much draw devices in standby mode use ? 

Many thanks.

(PS:   We are on a standard electric meter, and we have been told that we are unable to have a smartmeter apparently due to our very rural location)

G

Mstty

You can have generic answers but the best way is buy an energy Monitor like the tp link p110 and test all your own appliances as each will be different.

Cue the many...my device uses....xxx however this will not apply to your individual brands and model and age of appliance and when it comes to sky boxes, refridgeration and desktops again get a proper monitor and build your knowledge of your appliances.

Norman_Castle

Grazzier said:

Microwave  -  The microwave in our house is idle for probably 90% of its life. It has an electronic clock, so even when not in use it still pulls power to run the clock. I turn off the main wall switch for this DEVICE.

C) Alexa box - There is no standby light on this device, but I know it must be in standby so that when we use the trigger word to access it, it awakens and responds. Nothing can be done regarding powersaving here, other than turn it off. Not practicle.

I)  Internet router   -   I would guess that everyones router is never turned off by switch, and there is no standby, but do these boxes draw a lot of power or very little ?

Idle for 90% of its life? Is it in use for 2.4 hours per day?

C) Echo dot uses between 1.4 and 2.5 watts depending on whether its idle or in use such as playing a radio station.

I) My router uses about 7w

[Deleted User]

Hi,

similar thread HERE might help.

ariarnia

some people have made significant total savings by looking at lots of small savings from things like standby mode (tho its more often about the settings on tvs and consoles when they use more energy than you expect because there not really 'asleep') 

someone has already mentioned energy monitors. the price wobbles a bit but at the moment there 2 for £19 on the big river store which i dont think is a bad price (just make sure you get the energy monitoring plug version)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Tapo-Monitoring-Required-P110/dp/B0B831STBX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=7PHDG3MYX042&keywords=p110&qid=1672677722&sprefix=p110%2Caps%2C494&sr=8-1&th=1

what you do with them is plug them in between the thing you want to test and the wall. then leave them for a while and check the use. to test standby you can do overnight. (maybe 8 hours and divide by 8 to get the average hourly). if you do a shorter time than that then you might miss if theres times when it uses more power (if it updates or refreshes or cycles on and of or whatever)  

if you want to see in more general where your energy is going its best to leave them for at least 24 hours or a week while you use the device as normal. 

Mstty

@ariarniaSuperb and on that link above there was an offer of £2 discount as well (not sure that's for everyone) but it means 2 for £16.99👍

I wanted another 2 to add to my collection as they are good smart plugs too but wanted to monitor a couple of recent appliance purchases

matelodave

Any appliance that has an oo/off button that doesn't actually operate a mechanical switch will consume some power albeit quite low, usually less than one watt but sometimes more.

One watt for 24 hours seven days a week will consume 24*7=168w/h a week or 8.768kwh a year = around £3 a year at the moment with leccy at 35p/kwh so it's relatively easy to work out roughly how much stuff will cost

We were a bit surprised when I measured the standby power of our electric reclining chairs. They took 15watts each = 132kwh each per year = £46 each, we don't have them any more.

Even our Tassimo coffee machine uses around 3 watts on standby, so we shut it off when its not in use. The TV, surround sound and DVD player etc are all controlled by a single remote socket which saves them all sitting on standby all day and night. The SKY box is on stand-by so it can record when required. Most of our other stuff gets shut off at the wall - washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, microwave, cooker etc. as do the computers and printer.

We have FTTP so not only do we have a router that consumes around 8watts (£25 a year) but also an Optical Terminal Unit which consumes 5watts (£15 a year). None of them are a lot in themselves but it can add up, especially now leccy is 35p/kwh and likely to be nearer 50p/kwh come April.

The thing that really chews leccy on standby is our super duper highly efficient eco friendly heatpump - just on standby it uses 130watts which means that over a year it would happily consume 1140kwh = or £400. We can mitigate that quite a bit by shutting it off in the summer except when its heating water but it doesn't really make it as eco friendly or cost effective as the media wants us all to believe. Ours is nearly 13 years old and I guess that a more modern unit would be a bit better.

As Mstty says the only way is to measure your specific appliances and the TP-Link TAPO p110 monitor plug is a cheap and easy way to do it.

InvertedVee

Examples from my home at current standard variable (EPG) rates...

70W baseload  56.8p per day £207.45 per year

electricity cost per watt   0.8p per day £2.96 per year

3 no. extractor fans in continuous mode   9.7p per day £35.56 per year

10W LED bulb for 8 hours / day   2.7p per day £9.88 per year

boil 1 mug water   1.1p from room temp £40.75 per year (10 cups/day)

bath  51.7p est 110l, +40C £80.61 per year (3 per week)

shower (gas)  14.5p est 1.4kWh, 30 litres £75.23 per year (10 per week)

shower (electric)  47.4p est 1.4kWh, 30 litres £246.28 per year (10 per week)

dishwasher per load (Miele)  31.8p Miele G 4920 SC cold fill £115.75 per year (7 per week)

oven  28.4p Zanussi £127.88 per year (450x)

washing machine per load  30.4p 0.9kWh £63.33 per year (4 per week)

dehumidifier for 24 hours 121.8p est 150W

tumble dryer per load (Siemens 2010) 152.2p est 4.5kWh £73.07 per year (48 per year)

run Samsung TV for 4 hours/day   8.8p per day £32.10 per year

Hue bulb in standby   0.1p per day £0.44 per year

Amazon Echo on standby (measured)   2.4p per day £8.89 per year

VirginMedia 360 TV box (Eco standby)   0.2p per day £0.89 per year

VirginMedia Hub router   9.7p per day £35.56 per year

ariarnia

matelodave said:

The TV, surround sound and DVD player etc are all controlled by a single remote socket which saves them all sitting on standby all day and night.

to work from home ive got a work laptop and phone (with chargers), a docking station. 2 computer monitors. and a printer and shredder (that dont get used much). i did the same thing and got a big multi plug thing with a surge protector and its good for saving energy (but also for metally not just quickly checking emails when i'm not supposed to be working) to be able to click it all off with a flick of a switch.

when they were all on separate switches id always shut down the laptop but then forget to turn off the monitors or something. only thing to remember is you can't plug something into charge if the charger is plugged into something turned off! i've had a few early morning calls where ive sat on the floor to keep plugged into the charger

ariarnia

InvertedVee said:

3 no. extractor fans in continuous mode   9.7p per day £35.56 per year

can i ask about this? i'm guessing from the other things thats based on in use not standby? or are you saying a extractor in a rarely used second bathroom would cost £35 per year?

InvertedVee

ariarnia said:

InvertedVee said:

3 no. extractor fans in continuous mode   9.7p per day £35.56 per year

can i ask about this? i'm guessing from the other things thats based on in use not standby? or are you saying a extractor in a rarely used second bathroom would cost £35 per year?

Hi, my fans are two-speed. The low speed is on all the time to ensure ventilation in the home and consumes 4W of electricity per fan. The fans run at boost speed when the lights are on (bathrooms, WC) or when switched on (kitchen).

£35.56 is the total for three fans.