Did You Know?
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Appliances on stand-by add over $100 to your electricity bill and produce around 85kgs of CO2 per year.
This guide will help you save money on your electricity bill with simple and easy tips.
Making sure your home is energy efficient is a simple and easy way to save electricity and money. It only takes about an hour and you can reduce your energy bill significantly. All you need is your Sherlock Holmes hat and a Multifunction Energy Meter. The average home produces 15 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year and one hour of your time is all you need to help significantly reduce that. To see more about the Multifunction Energy Meter click here....
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Stand-By:
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Many appliances today have a built in stand-by function to save you the hassle of going to the power point and switching them on. You know an appliance is on stand-by when you see that little red light staring at you! Stand-by removes the hassle from life, but also adds a lot to your electricity bill without you knowing.
Appliances can still be using up to 40% of their full running power on stand-by and generally account for 10% of your electricity bill.
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Energy Efficiency:
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The team at Todae have done some extensive testing on appliances and their energy usage and here are some of the findings:
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- A laptop uses between 30 – 50 watts, however if you are going to be away from your computer for a little while put it to sleep – it will only use around 2 watts (less than 4% of the energy).
- A PC uses significantly more energy than a laptop. On average PC’s use between 130 – 250 watts. On start-up a PC will uses around 160 – 180 watts and while it is idle will use only 130 – 150 watts. When sleeping a PC will use a whopping 90 – 100 watts. Screen savers do not significantly reduce the energy consumption as a PC will still use around 140 watts. When leaving your PC and peripherals (monitor, speakers & printer etc.) on stand-by they will use around 15 watts in total.
- LCD Monitors use around 30 watts.
- Charging your iPod from your computer uses around 15 – 20 watts while charging it from the wall uses only 3.8 watts.
- Speakers use around 20 watts when they are idle, which is not much less than when they are playing music.
- Your average electric heater uses around 2000 watts. Left on stand-by a heater will use around 2 – 5 watts.
- A home entertainment system (CRT TV, Foxtel Box, Stereo, DVD Player & Game Console) uses around 38 watts on stand-by while being used the system will use around 200 watts.
- CRT TV’s (older TV’s) use on average less energy than Plasma & LCD TV’s. A 86cm CRT will use around 150w while a 106cm Plasma will use around 300w and a 76cm LCD TV uses around 200-250w. CRT TV’s produce around 100kgs of carbon emissions a year while Plasma’s & LCD produce four times that amount!
- Smaller stereos are significantly more energy efficient than larger stereos particularly on stand-by. Smaller stereos only use around 1 watt on stand-by while larger stereos use six times that amount.
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Purchasing New Appliances:
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- CRT monitors (older monitors) use significantly more energy than LCD monitors, so rather go for more efficient LCD versions.
- When purchasing a PC or laptop, ask about the energy consumption and consider than when making your purchase decision.
- Rather go for gas heaters instead of electric heaters, they use significantly less electricity and emit less CO2.
- Purchase smaller stereo systems as they are significantly more efficient than larger ones – and they still offer good sound quality.
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- Make sure your appliances use ‘energy star’ which helps to reduce energy consumption in sleep/stand-by mode.
- When buying an appliance check for the Energy Rating, the more stars the more money you will save in the long run and help to reduce emissions. The Australian Government Energy Rating Website is a great tool to compare makes & models including their energy usage and cost per annum. The rating also applies for Water & Gas usage.
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Table of Energy Consumption:
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Easy Energy Saving Tips:
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- Change your computer/laptop settings. Set your screen to switch off after 5 minutes of in-activity (instead of using a screen saver) and your computer to go to sleep after 15 minutes of in-activity. If you are going to be away for longer than 30 minutes switch your computer off.
- Charge your iPod from the wall socket, it uses much less energy.
- When you are finished charging your phone, iPod, camera or any other portable device switch the plug off or pull out the charger. Leaving it in uses around 0.3 watts.
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- In summer use a fan as much as possible instead of air conditioning. Fans only use between 20 – 50 watts opposed to 2000 watts for air conditioners. Or turn down your air condition by 1 degree in winter and up by 1 degree in summer to reduced energy consumption by 15%
- The average kettle uses around 2300 watts. Only fill the kettle with the amount of water you need, boiling 2 cups takes on average 1 minute while filling the kettle takes about 4.5 minutes. So you save time and money.
- The easiest way to stop leaving appliances on stand-by is with our remote control Powerboard. With this easy device you can turn appliances on and off at the plug by the simple click of a button! Click here for more info...
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