It is, amazingly, the small appliances that can waste the most energy
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Digital picture frames are small, so it is hard to see them as energy hogs, but they are. If each and every household in America had one of those frames running all day and night 24/7, it would take five power plants to run them all, according to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an electricity-focused research and development nonprofit organization.
Large home appliances like refrigerators and dryers are typical examples of energy-hungry devices, and most of them are, that is true. Energy hogs, however, don't necessarily need to be large in size. On the contrary. Small devices are also collectively sucking a lot of energy from the power grid, and as these devices become commonplace their energy consumption rises exponentially.
It is the very subtlety of the effect of large numbers of very small consuming devices that cause grief and predominately because people have no idea as to the fact as to how much those devices, in the numbers, draw in energy. The truth, in fact, is frightening.
Other small energy hogs include mobile phone chargers and laptop power adapters that are always plugged in to electric outlets. These chargers continue to draw energy even when the devices they charge have been disconnected. And "always-on" appliances like printers or speakers are called "energy vampires" because they also suck up power even when they're turned off or in an idle state.
Worse yet, the number of always-on devices is on the rise. The EPRI estimates that the typical American home thirty years ago had about three always-on devices; today that number has climbed to more tenfold that number.
Slaying the “energy vampires”, however, is worthwhile in the long run. While a refrigerator typically accounts for about 8% of the typical household's total annual energy consumption the “vampire” devices account for about 4%. While it is not possible, unless you want your food to spoil, to turn off the refrigerator or the freezer it is possible to turn off the “vampire” devices by removing them from the outlet. It's not rocket science.
As said, the very best way to rein in energy hogs and vampires is to turn them off and unplug devices when they are not in use. If unplugging, however, is not a practical or convenient solution then use a smart power strip to help stop the flow of electricity to an idle current. For instance, some smart strips allow you to set up a lead device like a computer so that when it is turned off, other supporting devices, like printers and speakers, are also turned off. This does not, unfortunately, work with laptops, however, as the strip cannot sense that the computer has been turned off.
Something that, once again, is a positive for the desktop computer, as far as I am concerned and with the proper operating system, a good Open Source one, the power draw of the PC is also lower than that of a Windows system.
Open Source operating systems, such as Linux Ubuntu, also permit the continued use of “obsolete” PCs well past their official use-by date which has been factored in for MS Windows use.
We don't often bother to change a device's default settings, but we can save energy here too. For example, you can manually lower the default brightness and intensity settings on a TV, and as I have just indicated, if you can and chose, and are happy to try, an Open Source operating system you can also save there in the power department as well and especially because of the fact that an older computer's life can be extended for a very long time to come.
Knowing how much energy we waste keeping devices on all the time should also motivate us to change our habits. Using an electricity monitor, a product that measures the energy efficiency of household appliances, to give you a better sense of their usage cost.
In addition to that when buying new appliances ensure that they are energy efficient ones and check their rating. Saving energy is good for your pocketbook and also and especially for the Planet. So, let's do it.
© 2011
