Standby Power Consumption

rhino2k

Has anyone here done a real world test (bearing in mind my partner and kids will be hard to retrain) on the realistic potential savings?

Overall we are probably quite good, Except for the dozen or so smart devices permanently on charge!

Everything in our house that is left on standby would conform to the <1w EU laws, Which makes me think it would be a very small saving.

We do not have a smart meter yet, And I want to know if it is worth the pain and heartache I will suffer to try and get them to turn things off!

TIA

grahamlthompson

Everything newer than 2013  is less than 0.5W.

rhino2k

Perhaps making this even more of a moot point then, as o can only think of one device we own which is that age (a Wii)
And it’s only recently been on standby....will unplug this as it won’t be used for a while now!

bardel

Barely anything to save I think.  Better off changing any lights to led.

rhino2k

Most of our lighting is LED so I guess I’m already on the right track

Chester

This might be useful for Sonos owners:
Sonos Support

Power consumption savings are always best to start from the biggest consumers down to the things that consume the least.  So anything with a heating element or a motor should be number one, cooking appliances, etc.  For example how long do you pre-heat an oven for before it's used?  Power consumption of an oven will be up to 4kW with the heating elements switched on which depending on temperature set and insulation is probably only around half the time it's on, except for preheating of course which is all of that period.  So <1/2 hour of this could negate turning off all of your appliances in standby for a week!

bardel

I’d say so.  Just remember that anything that’s not LED that you haven’t changed yet will save you more than switching your TVs off at night.  Eg leave 40w lighting on for 1 hour and it will use as much energy as a standby device using 0.5w will for 80 days!

John

In my last property I had an Owl Monitor in use for a while. Iirc, it used to cost 50p to 'run' the house each night from 0000-0600. About £180 a year

rhino2k

Interesting! (And quite frighting at the same time!)

However I have always wondered if smart meters have these amounts overnight because the standing charge is added on at midnight? Or did you not have the ability to add that info?

Actually I do not even know if supplier installed smart meters add the standing charge?!

With the way energy costs are going that 50p could soon be nearer £1

ChuckMountain

I have both a smart meter and a owl one that I had before and still have as a comparison.

The smart meter is more accurate and that's what they bill clearly.  I have various attempts to reduce my consumption during the year but have quite a lot of stuff that had to be posted on.

When I switched everything off and powered stuff back the owl meter overstated it.  It didn't like going much below 50w and certainly wasn't accurate at that stage. The meter however was in line with the manufacturer's specs for various items.  So long as you were pulling more than around 100w then it was more consistent. The owl meter is approx overstating by around 50-100w when the house is on standby.  So my actual consumption is around 350w which is a similar amount to yours