"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...
tony sayer wrote:

I posted this a few weeks ago on another thread, but it's relevant to this
one as well:-

With the last increase in energy costs, I went round the house working out
what the approximate consumption is of all the stuff left on standby or on
permanently, and I come to something around 400W. That's 3500KWh per year!
Some of the stuff, like fridge, freezer, cooker hob, ovens etc can't be
switched off without risking damaged food or the hassle of resetting
clocks, but other stuff certainly can be. Turning off just the hi-fi and
TV equipment when not being used saves 584KWh a year, more if I also turn
off the wireless router and the computer at night.

**I believe you've over-stated things somewhat. Setting aside the obvious
stuff, like refrigerators, most items on standby consume less than 5 Watts
each. Modern items consume less than 1 Watt. I have several itmes which I
leave in standby mode and I don't feel guilty in the slightest. Here's why:

It's August and we've just made it through the worst of a Sydney Winter
(which, for thjose of you in the UK, is not like a 'proper' Winter at all)
without using any room heaters. Not once. No air conditioning. Nothing. Just
warm clothes. Mind you, it has been a relatively mild Winter, with no frosts
(where I live) and typical pre-dawn temperatures of around 7oC. Given that
previously, I would use around 12,000kWh per day in room heating, the 400 Wh
per day for permanently powered stuff is small potatoes. I have shifted most
of my lighting to regular fluorescent, or compact fluorescent, thus saving
even more energy. Moving the (electric) hot water system inside and using a
more efficient model has elicited rather spectacular gains in performance
too. I now use around 20% of the energy I previously did for hot water.
Frankly, I was stunned at the improvement and it has caused me to reconsider
Solar hot water (very practical in most of Oz), given the high capital costs
involved (I figure on a 30 year payback time).




I would suggest that our domestic consumption is typical, even lower than
average as our children have left home, so if more people turned off stuff
on standby, the power saving would be very considerable. There is the
anecdotal evidence that equipment left on standby or permanently on seems
to be more reliable, but I'm happy to take that chance.

**A common misconception. The killer for most permanently powered items are
capacitor failures. Turning stuff off and on as required does several
things:

* Capacitors last longer.
* The product is shielded from unnecessary spikes on the mains.

I always turn stuff off (except for the obvious stuff, with clocks) unless I
actually want to use it.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au



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