guilty ignorance is no defence

kah22

I plead guilty because ignorance is no defence!

OK Electric here in my part of the woods is been hiked by 30 percent between now and Christmas, and we can’t shop around because we have no alternative suppliers.
Anyway I’m hearing that leaving items on stand by such as TV’s, Computers can be a costly mistake that they are still using energy – is this so, and how much?

When people talk about switching off at the switch, what is actually meant.
If I turn off my computer Start-Turn Off-Turn Off, am I not shutting the whole system down? Or do I have to turn it off at the switch ie. Actually press the button or turn it off at the socket?

If I sap my remote and turn off the telly at night is it still using electric again do I have to physically press the button or switch it off at the socket?

What sort of energy loss are we talking about here 5 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent. Maybe someone with the knowledge would do a detailed post on this issue – maybe they have and maybe I just can’t find it?

Kevin

Premier_2

Items in standby certainly use power.

How much varies by item type, manufacturer and model.

I've even seen a Freeview stb that uses just as much in standby as it does turned on!

Turning things off at the switch on the item can also vary. e.g. the switch on a freeview stb often just turns the box to standby. the switch on a laptop may turn the laptop off but power is still being used by the power transformer. A switch on a tv may turn the tv off completely.

Modern intructions will detail how much power an item uses both when on and when in stand-by.

If you want to guarantee an appliance is not using any power, switch it off at the mains and remove the plug

spiro

kah22 wrote: »

I plead guilty because ignorance is no defence!

OK Electric here in my part of the woods is been hiked by 30 percent between now and Christmas, and we can’t shop around because we have no alternative suppliers.

Kevin

Why do you say there are no alternative suppliers? What part of the UK are you in?

IvanOpinion

I would guess Northern Ireland .. even though the market 'opened' in NI last November nobody has joined in ......... yet

ivan

Cardew

As stated above the standby consumption of electrical/electronic appliances varies greatly; however in general terms standby is not the culprit it is made our to be in the media.

Firstly a guide to costs:

If an appliance consumes 1 Watt, then if it is left on 24/7 for 365 days(obviously permanantly on standby all year) it will cost 88 pence a year to run.(pricing electricity at 10p for a kWH)

Let us start with the worst item to be found in most houses - the Sky box. This can take up to 14 watts on standby. So we are talking £12 a year left on 24/7. The trouble with this appliance is that most of us want it to be on standby to receive updates and use it for recording.

The major manufactures have all signed up to reduce the standby consumption on all electronic appliances including TVs and for some years most have produced sets that consume less than 1 Watt a year. In fact Samsung say 0.1Watt(9p a year) is achievable for appliances.

So turning to TVs that seem to concern most people, well they are less of a problem than most people think. I have 4 sets that all consume under 1 Watt so each of them will cost less than 88p a year if left on standby all year. 2 of these are old(8 years) CRT sets - a 32" Sony takes 0.6Watt so about 50p a year.
I suspect that not many TVs that are less than 10 years old take more than 3 Watts. so £2.50 a year

There really is no 'one size fits all rule' for other appliances. Some older VCRs can have high consumption on standby, some modern DVDs very low consumption.
A PC can still consume some power - 2 to 5 Watts? unless switched off at the wall.
There have been lots of discussions about the 'evils' of standby consumption on MSE and some wild exagerations of the costs.
There are so many appliances in our home today, TVs. PCs, phones, DVDs, VCRs, cookers microwaves washing machines etc so certainly the 1 or 2 Watts here and there can add up.
However lots of items would require clocks to be reset if they were switched off at the wall - microwave, cooker etc.
Leaving out the dreaded Sky boxes I doubt if my standby consumption for the whole house would be 15 Watts(£13 a year) even if I left everything on standby 24/7(and I don't)

The best thing to do is get one of the cheap power meters that you can plug individual appliances into and see your standby consumption very easily.

To pre-empt the usual comments I am NOT advocating that you leave things on standby, but just get costs into perspective.

There are also websites, that quote standby consumptions for TVs etc that might have applied to 1950's sets with valves.

You are far better concentrating of the major heating appliances - dryers - dishwashers - cookers - w/machines - kettles etc as the scope for saving is far better.

Farway

There is also the point that the energy used in standby is not wasted, it goes out as heat, which will add to the room temperature

Obviously no good in summer, but winter is useful, if miniscule, amount of heat

kah22

spiro wrote: »

Why do you say there are no alternative suppliers? What part of the UK are you in?

Northern Ireland

Welcome_2

i for a efergy today and found out my mircowave used 0.100 per hour which is about 1p so thats 24p a day! and thats not even doing anything

Cardew

Welcome wrote: »

i for a efergy today and found out my mircowave used 0.100 per hour which is about 1p so thats 24p a day! and thats not even doing anything

100 Watts on standby? mine uses 1 Watt

There must be a fault with it, or your meter is faulty!!

Where does the heat from 100 Watts go?

How did you measure 100 Watts?