How to Save on Standby Energy

Hate to see the bill from the electric company show up in your mailbox? Would you like to cut your power consumption and save yourself some money? We all want to save money, and if we can help the environment at the same time, that's a real bonus. You'll be pleased to know there is a way you can save anywhere from 5 to 15 percent of your energy usage without making any dramatic changes to your lifestyle; just cut down on your standby energy consumption.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A desire to save money on your utility bills.
• A concern for the environment.

What is Standby Energy?

1. Standby energy (sometimes called leaky energy) is the power consumed by an appliance during its lowest possible energy-consuming mode--essentially when it's off.
2. We all have lots of appliances in our homes that continue to use energy even when they aren't operating. Anything with an external power supply, a remote control or a clock display is constantly consuming energy.
3. Consider that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy estimate that 40 percent of the electricity used by appliances is consumed while the appliances are off.
4. Accept that some standby power usage is necessary (telephones, thermostats, clocks, smoke and gas detectors).
5. Understand that a lot of power consumption is strictly for convenience (a TV with a remote is consuming power while constantly looking for the remote signal to turn on) or indifference (leaving a cell phone charger plugged in when the phone isn't there).

Some Ways to Eliminate Standby Power Usage

6. Explore your home and to find out how many electronic devices are constantly drawing power, and determine how many could be easily powered down except when needed.
7. Power off TV's, stereos, DVDs, PVRs, VCRs and video game units when they're not being used.
8. Consider grouping appliances by function and plugging them all into a single power bar. This way they can all be easily powered off with one switch when not in use.
9. Activate the sleep mode feature for your computer and other office equipment so they will consume less energy.
10. Unplug chargers for equipment like cell phones, PDAs and electric tools and only plug them in when you need them.

Some Other Ways to Save Electrical Energy

11. Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. While higher in price than incandescent, they use less than one tenth of the energy an incandescent bulb does, and last over ten times as long.
12. Take advantage of your programmable thermostat to adjust the temperature in your home.
13. Scrape (don't rinse) your dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. Be sure the dishwasher is full before turning it on. Select the air-dry setting rather than the heat dry setting.
14. Wash your clothes in cold water. Today's detergents are formulated to clean clothes with cold water, so using energy to heat water is unnecessary.

Tips & Warnings

• Look for those little red or green blinking lights to indicate electronics that are consuming standby power.
• Here are some examples of household electronics that consume power that you might not think about - baby monitors left on during the day, home entertainment units, even power bars with nothing plugged into them.

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