CONSERVATION OF ELECTRIC POWER

TIME WAS WHEN most of the electrical equipment around the house (and office or factory) was either switched on - and was using electricity - or was switched off - and wasn't. Times have changed. Today many things around the house from the electric toothbrush charger to the VCR are using small amount of power all the time they are plugged in. For a long time this creeping consumption has gone unnoticed. However, trivial a survey of 64 Australian houses measured an average 86.5 watts (760 kWh per year) This is more than enough energy for most refrigerators. Spot checking has shown that most households have standby losses similar to those in Australia. The international community has begun to move on standby power consumption.

Standby consumption is common to many electrical items besides appliances (e.g. computer equipment, televisions, audio equipment, garage door openers and smoke alarms). An IEC draft standard defines "Standby mode" as the lowest power consumption mode which cannot he switched off (influenced) by the end user and that may persist for an indefinite time when an appliance is connected to the mains electricity supply and used in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions". What we would hope to see is Energy Labelling Standards modified to include all the electricity the appliance uses in the year, whether working (washing, drying, etc.) or just waiting for the next task. Refrigerators are the only major appliances with the total annual power usage included in their energy labels.

Standby consumption for some equipment is a very high percentage of the total - typically around 50% for microwave ovens and of the order of 90% for many video recorders. It is possible, with clever design to cut this standby consumption to virtually zero (milliwatts rather than watts). For electricity-using items that do not have energy labelling, particularly those where standby can be a major part of their total use, just measuring, labelling and controlling the standby energy used has the potential for major energy savings.

(Which? magazine, April 1992

Click below to view one of our annual issues:

_-_ _-_ _-_ _-_