How Worth It Is It To Turn Off Your Electronics?

[holygail44]

What I really mean is it really that significant a difference in saving energy and money?

I question this due to all the publicity lately devoted to products draining energy even when they're off, and the emphasis of importance of unplugging all your things at home when you're leaving. The only things I've seen are things like this GreenPower strip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Tf0Edkijc&feature=channel_page) which is great, but what else is out there, and how much of a difference does it really make?

I found this also, which I thought was a little useful,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GYXQAlb3UM - The guy in this is talking about a few options, too, but it sounds like he's relating more to a a company working to go green.

Does anyone currently use any products like some of these to make it easier to turn things off, and would you recommend it?

[pshch]

Do your math - compare price of all these smart strips to a price of a regular surge protector (assuming you do use a surge protector) and see how long it will take to pay for additional feature. By my calculations it's cheaper to turn off switch on surge protector/power bar when I remember then buy a special device to do the work.

[tkddad]

We have been doing this for a couple of years. All electronics
are plugged into power bars and we just turn off the switch
every day before going out and every night before going to bed.

We saved about 10-15% in electricity bill.

[twirlermom]

Anything with an instant on feature, remote control or "ready to go light" (TV, microwave, computer, scanner, printer, dust-buster, chargeable flashlight or drills, video games, stereo, ipod docking stations, DVD players - and come on, when was the last time you WATCHED a DVD?) consumes electricity, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week while "off". These phantom devices use 0.2 to 0.5 amps on average (Any chargeable tools may use up to 2.0 amps) This is equal to around 24-60 watts per hour.

If you went through your house top to bottom, you would find ten of these quite easily, cheerfully consuming approximately 300 watts per hour, or 216 kWh per month. 216 kWh at twelve cents (about the total cost of a kWh) is $25.92.

[Heynow999]

It is not about how much you will save yourself, it is about, as a society, we all have these parasitic loads running 24/7 and that adds up to a huge amount of waste. Its like using an old gas lawnmower. You yourself are not creating a huge amount of exhaust, but if you imagine all the lawnmowers in your city running in a field in one place at one time it would probably create so much exhaust that it would kill you. Multiply that by the continent and then the whole world.

I actually took the time to send an email to Sony to suggest that they produce a line of tv's and dvd's that do not draw power when they are not in use. A "green" line of home entertainment appliances. I would buy one. They said "but they all do that?" Idiots

[mbg]

Note that some devices are very good and some are very bad. For example, a good brand of DVD player may use less than 1W in standby, but an old TV may use 25W or more, just for the TV listing function some of them have (GuidePlus). Anything that does extra stuff other than just wait for a remote control signal while turned off will use more.

AC adapters also vary in how efficient they are. My Lenovo laptop adapter, for example, uses no electricity when the battery is fully charged, even if left plugged in.

It's probably easier just to turn everything off, but if it's something that is very convenient to be left plugged in for whatever reason, you should check it and see if it is really using that much.

It costs roughly 8-10 cents per month for each "always on" watt.

[holygail44]

We have been doing this for a couple of years. All electronics
are plugged into power bars and we just turn off the switch
every day before going out and every night before going to bed.

We saved about 10-15% in electricity bill.

I do like this idea. Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I will definitely keep them in mind as I make my house more efficient while making upgrades. I'll keep you all posted on how it goes

[Maymybonneliveforever]

If you went through your house top to bottom, you would find ten of these quite easily, cheerfully consuming approximately 300 watts per hour, or 216 kWh per month. 216 kWh at twelve cents (about the total cost of a kWh) is $25.92. Are you serious? You mean to say that if I unplugged approximately 10 electronics such as TV's VCR's, DVD players, PC's etc, I would save approximately $25.00 per month on my electricity bill which is about 30%. That's unbelievable.

[lame23]

:arrowu::arrowu: Thats per year!

[Maymybonneliveforever]

If you went through your house top to bottom, you would find ten of these quite easily, cheerfully consuming approximately 300 watts per hour, or 216 kWh per month. 216 kWh at twelve cents (about the total cost of a kWh) is $25.92.Well then I missunderstood since "216 khw per month" were next to each other in wording and "216 kWh at twelve cents (about the total cost of a kWh) is 25.92" were in the same sentence. $2.16 per month sounds much more in line.

[maniacshopper]

it's so worth it to turn off electronics.
Not only turn off, but unplugging them!!!!
standby consumption adds up.
or invest in surge protectors and turn them off.

[akito925]

We have been doing this for a couple of years. All electronics
are plugged into power bars and we just turn off the switch
every day before going out and every night before going to bed.

We saved about 10-15% in electricity bill.

everything of mine I'd turn it off on a power bar

[mbg]

everything of mine I'd turn it off on a power bar

That's pretty good. I tried hooking everything in my house to one power bar in the living room but some of the cords weren't long enough, especially the stuff in the bedrooms and basement.

[vsaint]

Plasma TV can use something around 100 watts.
ps3 around 20-30 watts.
dvd/sound system 20+ watts.

Basically, would you leave a 60/100 watt light bulb on 24/7?

[williamsauga]

i cant believe those tree hugging hippies.

I left mine on 24/7

[gambit_360]

The best thing is just buy a power meter and measure all your devices on standby. As someone said before, there are some devices that use more than others.

Worst offenders are: laser printers, powered speakers, computer monitors, computers, old CRT TV's.

But in general, most devices do not have any power "leak" during standby - especially on any of the newer devices.

[mbg]

Plasma TV can use something around 100 watts.
ps3 around 20-30 watts.
dvd/sound system 20+ watts.

Basically, would you leave a 60/100 watt light bulb on 24/7?

I don't know about the PS3, but the other two aren't true.

No TV that is EnergyStar compliant will use that much power when turned off. It would not even be close. In fact, I would be surprised if it even used 5W when turned off, and there is no reason for it to use more than 1 watt. Maybe if it's a very old TV, it will use more, but I'd be surprised if it's anywhere near 100W. Current Panasonic plasmas, for example, use less than 1W when in standby (i.e. "off").

And if your sound system is a standard receiver with a normal DVD player, it should not use anywhere close to 20+ watts when turned off. More likely, each of them uses less than 1 watt when off... just enough to respond to the remote.

[mbg]

The best thing is just buy a power meter and measure all your devices on standby. As someone said before, there are some devices that use more than others.

Worst offenders are: laser printers, powered speakers, computer monitors, computers, old CRT TV's.

Powered speakers are only bad if they are the type that turn on and off by themselves... but even then, they need not be. It depends on how they're designed. If they have a power switch, there's no problem... although if they have an inefficient AC adapter then that may draw some power even when off.

Laser printers are not bad as long as they go into sleep mode after they haven't been used for a set time.

Computers are probably the worst by far, especially if left turned on 24x7 because of some myth that they last longer that way (which is still going around!). My neighbours next door, for example, leave both their PC and CRT monitor turned on 24x7 and the CRT never goes into standby. That is likely at least 150W of continuous draw... over 100 kWh/month, or more than $10/month in electricity.

But in general, most devices do not have any power "leak" during standby - especially on any of the newer devices.

Anything that has a remote will have some leak, but these days it won't be much... less than 1 watt. Although I wouldn't put it past some cheap no-name imports to still be bad with this.

AC adapters can be a source of concern. If your device is off and the adapter is warm, that is a sign it's drawing power continuously. But, it comes down to design. My Thinkpad AC adapter, for example, draws no power when the notebook is charged yet plugged in... other than presumably a very small amount that keeps the battery trickle-charged as it drains while in standby mode (but standby mode is already very efficient on notebooks).

[gambit_360]

When I mention the worst offenders of power leakage on standby, I mean they use power that's actually measurable. Some people make such a big deal out of this but until you actually buy a power meter and measure it, it'll probably be a lot less than you imagined. Like this:

Plasma TV can use something around 100 watts.
ps3 around 20-30 watts.
dvd/sound system 20+ watts.

Basically, would you leave a 60/100 watt light bulb on 24/7?

All would use < 1W during standby (basically unmeasurable with any conventional power meter). Yes, even the PS3. I can confirm this.

[Nikita]

Do your math - compare price of all these smart strips to a price of a regular surge protector (assuming you do use a surge protector) and see how long it will take to pay for additional feature. By my calculations it's cheaper to turn off switch on surge protector/power bar when I remember then buy a special device to do the work.

That's an excellent idea, I never thought of that. My only concern, or question, is I have my anti-virus set to scan at 3:00 am. I also always leave my laptop on hibernate rather than shutting it off, partly because it's just quicker getting back on and partly because, being a total non-techie, thought if I turn if off the anti-virus won't scan. Can someone tell me I'm wrong and that if I shut it down completely it'll still do the scans? If so, I'll start shutting it down at night, I'm willing to give up the few minutes it saves me to start it up daily if it actually does reduce my carbon footprint.

i cant believe those tree hugging hippies.

I left mine on 24/7

Yayyy for you....:rolleyes:

[weedb0y]

That's an excellent idea, I never thought of that. My only concern, or question, is I have my anti-virus set to scan at 3:00 am. I also always leave my laptop on hibernate rather than shutting it off, partly because it's just quicker getting back on and partly because, being a total non-techie, thought if I turn if off the anti-virus won't scan. Can someone tell me I'm wrong and that if I shut it down completely it'll still do the scans? If so, I'll start shutting it down at night, I'm willing to give up the few minutes it saves me to start it up daily if it actually does reduce my carbon footprint.


If the computer is on hibernation, I can assure that your 3AM antivirus scan is not not happening since the computer is technically off. Hibernate mode just keeps everything on 'hold' on a Harddrive and turns off the computer.

[pluto]

There isn't really that big a difference between S3 standby and hibernation / 'powered off' (S4) on most modern PCs - I've checked with a kill-a-watt

I know that many scheduled tasks (defrag, guide update, tv recordings) can wake a PC up from S3 mode as I do this with my HTPC, of course it depends on the software.

Nightly scanning the entire drive for viruses seems like HUGE overkill to me. Weekly is *more* than enough. You have real-time scanning in just about every piece of antivirus software I've ever used.

Obviously unplugging the power cord / switching off the power cord is the best for power savings but in some cases its just not practical.

What I've done at home and at my office is make sure I'm buying PCs and or motherboards / power supplies that make efficient use of power when they are on so the overall impact is lessened so its not as bad that a few have to be left plugged in, or even powered on 24/7

The real shame of the computing industry to me is how still to this day consumers are buying (or being sold) *way* more powerful computers than they need for surfing the web and reading emails. The increasing popularity of netbooks and nettops using low power chips is an encouraging sign however.

[gwu]

We had a 'Green' week at work, where they handed out Kill-A-Watt's.
So I did a little experiment in my cubicle, here are the results.




Hours Items KWH /per
Work Hours LCD Monitor, Laptop, Dock, Printer, 1 Desk Lamp 0.09 1 hour
Work Hours Average Working Day 0.72 8 hours
Work Hours Average working week 3.60 40 hours
Work Hours Average working year 180.00 2000 hours

Phantom Hours LCD Monitor Off, Laptop Off, Dock, Printer On, 1 Desk Lamp Off 0.01 1 hour
Phantom Hours Average Phantom Hours a day 0.10 16 hours
Phantom Hours Average Phantom Hours per week 0.79 128 hours
Phantom Hours Average Phantom Hours per year 40.62 6600 hours

Total Sum of Work Hours + Phantom Hours 220.62 8600 hours
Rate per kWh Average Rate, as per TorontoHydro.com, Cents/kWh $0.06

Avg Total Cost Total Avg Yearly Electrical Cost of Work Hours $10.80 per year
Avg Total Cost Total Avg Yearly Electrical Cost of Phantom Hours 2.44 per year
[b]Avg Total Cost Total Avg Electrical Cost (Work hours + Phantom hours) $13.24 per year [b]

Comprised of:
19' LCD Dell Monitor, 15' Dell Laptop, Cheapy Speakers, 20W CCFL desk lamp, HP Laserjet 1320 Printer

[Dan_DHRT]

i cant believe those tree hugging hippies.

I left mine on 24/7

I do mine because I am cheap. Being 'green' is a side benefit.

If one actually pays the electric bill in the family, one is more motivated to be the 'turn off' cop.

Yes, Power Bars all over the place in the house. It just takes a few seconds to do.