That is awesome research, AD! I wish more people had the ability/know-how to do this type of inventory. It would be very eye-opening to many.Arthur Dent wrote:I open my garage door the old fashioned way, so no standby power. As a result of this thread, I updated the standby power inventory for all the stuff plugged in and on my TV cabinet (most of my electronics). I've added a couple gadgets since I last checked this. In total, about 48 W of "standby" power is consumed. Almost half of that, 23 W, comes from the cable DVR. In descending order, the draws are:mikechamp wrote:AD: I'd be interested in knowing what the reading is on your garage door opener.
Cable DVR: 23 W
Cable modem: 6 W
Network HDD: 5 W
Subwoofer: 5 W
AV Receiver: 4 W
Wireless router: 3 W
PC: 1 W
Playstation: 1 W
HD PVR: < 1 W
TV: < 1 W
Besides the DVR, the real offenders here are the subwoofer, AV receiver, and network HDD, none of which have any good reason to use more than one watt of standby power. This is just bad design. Notice that the TV uses less than one watt even though it has to power an IR remote receiver. The cable modem and wireless router don't really (and probably can't) have a standby mode, so it's not surprising they use some power.
The 48 W of standby power equates to about 35 kWHr/mo, ~5 % of my total usage, and about $4.50/mo at 13¢/kWHr. If all these devices were better designed to use only 1 W of standby power, I could save about 24 KWHr/mo or about $3/mo.
Question: Is your TV newer (as in, non-CRT)? The electronics industry has made a very concerted effort to curb vampire loads since the advent of flat screen (LCD/LED) TVs. Plasmas still suck juice, though.
This also shows others on here that, even for someone as energy conscious as AD, standby/vampire loads are costing him ~$54 year. As utility rates rise, that amount grows.