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Electronic devices that are turned "off " are stealing more than a $1-billion a year of electricity from Canadians ($10-billion in the United States).
When your television and set top box are "off," they`re still sucking up to 48Wi -- so that when you flick on the remote, the TV instantly springs to life. It`s called "vampire," "phantom" or "standby power."
Your microwave uses more electricity to power the digital clock for the 23 hours and 55 minutes a day that you`re not using it than the five minutes you do to heat your dinner. A staggering 10% of North American household electricity is stolen by standby power.
With three billion mobile phones, two billion TVs and one billion PCs worldwide and an average of 40 consumer electronic devices per North American home, standby power is a big, BIG issue. Four billion power supplies are sold worldwide each year with electronic devices --each hungrily sucking power unnecessarily.
In 1999, residential phantom power consumed more electricity in California than all refrigeration! So the state imposed regulations that manufacturers could only sell devices that consumed 0.5W in standby mode. Most devices now being sold in California draw only 0.1W, and here`s the kicker: This standard resulted in no difference in retail prices. Manufacturers` conversion costs were so small that they weren`t worth accounting for. With the stroke of a pen, California saved billions of dollars by avoiding having to build three power plants.
Read the full article here.
When your television and set top box are "off," they`re still sucking up to 48Wi -- so that when you flick on the remote, the TV instantly springs to life. It`s called "vampire," "phantom" or "standby power."
Your microwave uses more electricity to power the digital clock for the 23 hours and 55 minutes a day that you`re not using it than the five minutes you do to heat your dinner. A staggering 10% of North American household electricity is stolen by standby power.
With three billion mobile phones, two billion TVs and one billion PCs worldwide and an average of 40 consumer electronic devices per North American home, standby power is a big, BIG issue. Four billion power supplies are sold worldwide each year with electronic devices --each hungrily sucking power unnecessarily.
In 1999, residential phantom power consumed more electricity in California than all refrigeration! So the state imposed regulations that manufacturers could only sell devices that consumed 0.5W in standby mode. Most devices now being sold in California draw only 0.1W, and here`s the kicker: This standard resulted in no difference in retail prices. Manufacturers` conversion costs were so small that they weren`t worth accounting for. With the stroke of a pen, California saved billions of dollars by avoiding having to build three power plants.
Read the full article here.