It's time to put the Kill A Watt electricity meter to work, starting with my home theater.
A huge amount of energy is consumed by appliances in standby mode -- that is, when they are turned off. Microwave ovens, VCRs, set-top boxes, and radios typically have clocks that draw constant power. Other appliances, like television sets, don’t really turn off when you click the remote control, they switch to a standby mode so startup is quicker.
It may not seem like a big deal that a TV or microwave consumes a few watts of power while not in use, but how many appliances do you have in your house? Cumulatively, it can add up to a lot; studies show average standby power consumption of 65 W per household in North America. Now multiply that by every household, and the amount of energy consumed is huge. Several studies have shown that standby power accounts for as much as 10% of all residential power consumption.
This isn’t a new problem. Initiatives like the International Energy Agency’s One Watt Initiative and the Energy Star program exist to set standards for appliance standby consumption. The One Watt Initiative, for example, has set the goal of ensuring that all appliances by the year 2010 consume 1 W or less of power in standby mode. The Energy Star program sets specific standards for different types of appliances. Appliances that meet their standards frequently sport an Energy Star logo.
How does my house measure up? Here's what I learned about my home theater using my new favorite instrument, the Kill A Watt electricity meter. The following graph shows standby power consumption for each home theatre component:
All together, my home theatre costs $68 per year to run without ever turning it on!
The two biggest surprises are the subwoofer and TV standby power consumption. My Harmony universal remote control only turns on the receiver for DVD playback and the PlayStation 3 (which is primarily used as a Blu-Ray player), so the subwoofer is used infrequently. Consuming 10 Watts, 24 hours per day seems wasteful considering the amount of time it is used. TV standby power consumption at 25 Watts also seems wasteful.
What can be done to reduce standby power consumption? I am considering putting the subwoofer and TV on an Insteon ApplianceLinc and linking that to a button on a Insteon KeypadLinc switch. That would save me approximately $50 per year. Not much can be done about the Cable set-top box because it's a PVR and thus needs to remain on all the time.
UPDATE: It turns out there's a simple solution to subwoofer standby power consumption. Plugging the subwoofer into the AV receiver ensures that it only receives power when the receiver is on.
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