Fluffy the Vampire Slayer
"I should get the vacuum cleaner out more often," I said to myself as I chased the fluffy dust bunnies from their nest of cables beneath the desk.
Thu, March 12, 2009
IDG News Service — "I should get the vacuum cleaner out more often," I said to myself as I chased the fluffy dust bunnies from their nest of cables beneath the desk.
Although ... where would I plug it in? Only one of the numerous multiway extension leads had any free sockets -- and it had no power. I suspected it was plugged into itself, but I didn't have the courage to disentangle all the wires to find out.
Besides, that day I had another mission: slaying vampires.
"Vampire" electrical devices account for 4.4 percent of all electricity consumption, according to the German Federal Office for Environment Protection (Umweltbundesamt, or UBA), or 10 percent of home electricity consumption, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab. These "undead" gadgets are neither alive (turned on and doing something useful) nor dead (turned completely off). Instead, they are "on standby" and continue to draw electricity while doing nothing, just in case their owners wish to, say, play a DVD at a moment's notice, or recharge their cell phones without bending down to plug the charger into the wall socket.
Many governments have passed legislation or set targets in recent years to reduce the power consumption of devices on standby to 1 watt or below.
Even if a device draws as little as 1 watt of power while on standby, the cost mounts up: In a year, it would use 8.76kWh of electricity, which in France costs roughly €1 (US$1.25). Turn off devices that together consume 100W in standby mode, and you've saved €100!
To find out how much a device costs to run a watt-meter is essential, as not all manufacturers publish figures for how much power their devices draw in standby mode -- and for those that do publish figures, it doesn't hurt to check their claims.
Buying yet another gadget to measure how much power the others are consuming would have been a waste, though: That's why I borrowed a watt-meter from a friend. If you live in Germany you don't need energy-conscious friends as you can borrow a watt-meter free through a nationwide program promoted by the UBA. At a more local level, similar projects exist in Ontario, Canada, and in the U.S. state of Maine, often operated through public libraries. Ask around: There may be another one near you.
Once you've got hold of a watt-meter, the fun starts, as you slip it between various devices and the wall outlet, turning them off and on to see how their power consumption changes.
