Electric supplier sends insights every month and I see that "Stand by and always on" appliances are consuming too much electricity.
How can I identify them? I have the following things that might be always on: Microwave indicator LED light, Refrigerator, Wifi modem, laptop power.
There could be many others which I don't know. Is there a way to identify which ones are consuming a lot of electricity? This would help me to cut down.
If you have a smart meter, login to the portal provided by your electricity retailer/distributor. Most of these portals have a near real-time view of your electricity usage. Turn on-off your appliances and devices one by one while monitoring total usage and you would be able to get a much better idea about their individual power usage.
The only issue with this method is you won't be able to detect phantom power usage as it would be extremely small to be measured by a smart meter. As one of the previous posters said I would not really worry about saving phantom power unless you have 100 devices on standby at home as the convenience most certainly outweighs the small cost. At most the total savings would add up to $10 a year, something you could easily save by not having two coffees that year. If I really want to make dent in the electricity bill I would look into other things such as replacing CFL and Halogen globes with LED, turn off lights when not needed, cut down AC, electrical heating, etc.
which retailer are you refering to and in what state? In VIC the smart meter only give you realtime usage if you want to invest in a pulse reading meter and hook it up to the blinking led light on your meter, I assume similar apply to smart meter in other state. Or you could investigate in a set of real time energy monitor to do that. Smart meter from retailers/distributor is only smart in allowing them to remotely read your meter, some do have abilities to integrate with zigbee addon that let you read real-time use but I believe those third party system actually died out last time I tried to look for, and support from DSNP is almost non-existence
Other examples of devices using standby power
TV
PVR
Cordless phone
Gaming console
Media boxes (Apple TV, Android boxes, Chromecast)
And anything that is turned on with a remote control
Standby power accounts for a tiny percentage of your overall power.
Most of your power goes to heating and cooling water/food/air (including clothes dryer).
Taking 5 minutes less in the shower once a year will probably save you more than going around the house turning off standby stuff each day for a year.
The most useful info from that page is that the cost of leaving your TV on standby is between 1 and 2 cents per year. That is, the MAXIMUM they measured was 2c.
The router being on standby is also very misleading - it's always broadcasting wifi (perhaps not transmitting) so the standby power cost of $41.58 is rather worthless.
I get a similar message. Worthwhile having a look at what appliances you do have. Figure out how much your fridge uses (energy label) and the rest is all other usage.
Potentially I would maybe save 20c a day going around switching things off.
I get the same emails from AGL.
In my case, they can't seem to keep their stats consistent so I don't really pay any attention to the emails. I've been receiving the emails for about 8 months and I notice the amount in "Standby and Always on" seems to be increasing every month, however the rate of electricity has not increased, and I have not added any additional appliance to my house.
As others have said, turning off appliances that are already in standby mode wont save you much per year. To save money, run your heater less, or at a lower temperature. Don't use a dryer unless absolutely necessary. Turn down the hot water temperature so its not always heating, use LED globes. If an appliance dies research into more energy efficient models.
And, for the last time, turn down that damn rock'n'roll music!
Thanks. Very good tips
I have done this for every appliance:
So the only thing I changed was turning off the game console. Nothing else uses enough to warrant action.
Will try that. Nintendo game console ?
How old is your hot water heater? It might be chewing a bit.
probably 10 years old . I live in a rental house and have very little control.
depending on type, gas storage system use pilot light should not use any electricity at all, new instantaneous gas type only use to ignite gas and should be minimal and resistive electric hot water barely use much on standby compared to how much energy they chew through a day (20kwh+)
Get this to check every appliance that uses power, and make a note of it so you won't forget in the future,
you can even put a piece of masking tape around the cord and write the wattage in texta
Take it with you to the store to check with your new appliance before you buy it,
then note the usage for future reference
those you can see and you can turn off, probably will just save you $5 a year.
the big ones you cant turn off ie fridge
if you need saving better not checking ozb too often it will create impulse buying most of the time.