The Stand- By demon

[John]

At the place where I work they are embarking on a campaign on energy reduction (no issues here) but they keep beating on about TVs left on standby. Apparently it is going to destroy the planet.

I checked my 4 year old (CRT) TV - it claims to use only 0.8 of a watt on standby. I guess this is becoming typical - and I only use standby if I switch off during normal viewing times (so it is completely off between bed time and early evening) Yet the publicity being used claims £50 per household for stuff on standby.

I have been looking for some sort of ball park cost per unit of electricity that I can put into a response to our Environmental guy but can't find one.

Any ideas (Shouldn't have shredded old bills)?

Whilst this campaigning is going on some areas are buying stuff whilst other ends of the factory are dumping stuff - leading to un-necessary production of furniture, tools and other equipment. But it is nice to look through glossy catalogues and buy new stuff if you are so empowered!

[Bob Eager]

I get very annoyed about this figure, which is (a) probably ancient (b) wrong to start with. Proably worked out once (wrongly) in the past, and forever quoted.

Our 28 inch (sorry!) TV uses nominally 8 watts on standby. Seems to be in that ball park if I measure it. Let's call it 10W.

OK, that's approximately 250Wh over 24 hours, or 1kWh over 4 days. That's approximately 90kWh a year.

Take an approximate cost of 10p per kWh. This will vary, but again a ballpark figure. That makes £9.00 per year - let's round it up to £10 as the cost per kWh is a little low, perhaps.

So, £10 per year if you leave the TV on standby ALL of the time. In reality, some of that time, it will be switched on; let's say about 5 hours a day on average, or 20% of the time. You can't count that time as 'wasted standby' time, so that brings the cost per year down to £8. Even lower if you actually turn it off for the night.

Now, that's only for one appliance, but it's the one everyone quotes and indeed seems to imply that it's responsible for £50 on it's own. Selective quoting. It's also the most power hungry.

The figures given are total greenwash. Not to say you shouldn't turn it off (we do) but let's get there by quoting truthful figures.

[MikeH]

Just had a letter from nPower (which hasn't yet made it to the shredder) stating their current rates for their online domestic account customers:-

15.92p/unit up to and including 728 kWh/year 8=2E18p/unit over 728 kWh/year

Both prices exclude vat at 5%

I've no idea what businesses pay for power. I guess heavy users like aluminium smelters are able to negotiate a better rate. :-)

They say average domestic electricity usage is 3300 kWh/year, but I think mine is more like 5000 kWh/year. Either way, you could work out an effective single unit rate charge for the purposes of deciding how much your standby consumption was costing.

I must admit to becoming more conscious of this sort of stuff myself. The only problem is that occasionally using the tumble dryer for an extra hour or so on a rainy day blows the 'standby' issue out of the window.

Mike

[Mary Fisher]

No it's not. But all the tiny, apparently unimportant issues such as this add up.

It might for some people.

Ask your electricity supplier.

Indeed. We're still a consuming society despite paying lip service to saving energy.

I could but I don't like it. I did see some beautiful bed linen the other day, if we were starting from scratch I'd be tempted (mind you, we were utterly skint when we were starting out!). There's no point in buying more though when we have enough to see us out.

I hate shopping :-(

Mary

[Brian Sharrock]

snip

Assuming that you're correct about 0.8W: leaving it on standby for 24hrs x 365 days= 7 KwH per year!

My figures is for leaving the thing on standby - ALL THE TIME- your usage may vary :)

Elektrickery seems to be about 12p per KwH - {Band A , Band B, Economy 7 ..., I couldn't be bothered to try to calculate a 'typical charge) but fror the 7~ 8 wH per year; that's Eight Quid a Year! (per device)

[Mary Fisher]

I agree. But why do people have to be persuaded to save energy by appealing to their pockets?

Mary

[Bob Eager]

Probably because of lies such as the above. If they can't be trusted to give truthful figures, why should perople believe anything else they say? And the disdainful attitude of many of those who advocate green policies. They shoot themselves in the foot because of the patronising attitude shown by many.

Sad, but there we are.

[.]

I watched the news last night and there was some energy saving guff going on. some bright spark had deduced that his toaster was eating energy at a rate he wasn't happy with so to save energy they threw the toaster in the bin.

didn't freecycle it, didn't take it to the tip, they threw it in the bin which, presumably, would either end up in landfill or the subsequent collection and sorting of it would probably use more energy than the toaster would have done in a year.

[Brian Sharrock]

I didn't see the article you've described; but: after the director called 'Cut!', 'That's a wrap!" the cameraman's lighting man, turned off his bank of spots, plugged his batteries into mains-outlets to recharge them, while the presenter filled in his expenses claim form indenting for a new toaster that they'd seen in Harrods .. and they all drove off in their 4x4 'Chelsea Tractor' to collect it.

Cynical? Moi?

[Huge]

The truth? From *greenies*??? Surely you're kidding????

But I do agree you shouldn't waste it.

[Mary Fisher]

Oh no - the first question asked when a new economy saving unit is advertised is: how much (money) will it save?

It's how such things are sold.

When people get to know that we have a solar water heater it's the first question most of them ask. The questioners can't believe that we neither know nor care.

Mary

[Tony Bryer]

£8 for one TV. Two per household on average these days I suspect. Add a VCR, DVD player, 2 DECT phones, digital radio off a mains adaptor and I'm probably heading for £50. I do turn off the adaptor to my ADSL router when I'm not using it, but that's more for security than power saving - I suspect that lots of people leave them on.

[Bob Eager]

I agree...although I doubt that all of them use that much each. But there's a strong implication, in the publicity, that the figure is *per appliance*.

[mogga]

So your relatives can pile it all into black bags and try and carboot it and then end up taking it to the charity shop after its been in their garage for 6 months.

They won't bother to wash your clothes before they send them either.

I like looking. Gives me an idea of what prices to write on the stuff at the charity shop.

[mogga]

But insulating your hot water tank still only saves you £10 a year even years after they started promoting insulation.

[dom]

I wonder why there is this attempt to direct attention onto a trivial area of energy consumption.

The real biggies are air travel, domestic heating and car usage.

The smallest reduction in consumption in any one of those areas would dwarf the total elimination of standby electricity consumption.

[John]

the toaster.

[.]

experienced more like :-)

[Peter Parry]

Because the campaigners know they can't win if they say that to achieve what they want all fuel must be pushed up in price to a point where large numbers of elderly and poor die of hypothermia each year and transport (other than by government approved train) becomes a luxury only politicians and green campaigners can afford.

They have to try to get enough people into a frame of mind where they will actually be prepared to tolerate draconian measures - and scare stories and fake figures is the way to start greenwashing them.

To achieve this you use scientific measure, such as "if all UK households turned appliances off rather than putting them on standby it would save the energy produced by two-and-a-half 700 megawatt power stations each year" or "If 10 percent of the world's cell phone owners [unplugged their chargers when not in use], it would reduce energy consumption by an amount equivalent to that used by 60,000 European homes per year."

Using these babytalk figures you can easily hide the truth. For example most phone chargers are switched mode and consume under half a watt when the battery is charged. A very few linear types from days of yore will consume 5W even when unplugged from the phone. Guess which figure is used to work out the "60,000 homes a year" figure.

Real facts have to be hidden, otherwise it becomes rather too easy to disprove the propaganda.

Generating more electricity is obviously a really big no-no as this would inevitably involve nuclear energy and that is the ultimate hate object of the leaders of the various greenygroups.

[meow2222]

Sounds a bit straw mannish to me. Whats needed is to make things efficient, stop the waste. Theres no point in getting draconian when a lot can be saved by isulation and a bit of basic sense.

Cars are pointlessly overpowered to appeal to immature buyers, national holidays are more relaxing than international, etc etc.

Why do eople ask ohw much it saves?

1. Because its an easy way to measure energy saving.
2. Because it also tells you the payback, which is the simplest way to work out whether it really saves any energy at all..

NT