Background electricity usage

[ThriceNightly]

I turn my kitchen echo dot off at wall socket after supper and back on at breakfast.

 

[Harnser]

Just curious as to what other people‘s background electric usage is. So stuff that you can’t really turn off or will be a pain to keep turning off for little gain.

This is us. We have a Sky Q box which isn‘t on here; that’s because it uses about 20w so is on a smart socket which switches it on at about 4.50pm and off at bedtime. We never watch anything during the day anyway and there’s always catch up.

Item	Quantity	Wattage Each	Total
Fridge/freezer	1	80	80
Freezer	1	20	20
Amazon Echo	8	3	24
Router	2	10	20
PoE Switch	1	20	20
Smart sockets	8	1.2	9.6
Printer	1	2	2
Smart device hubs	2	3	6
TV	2	0.5	1
Security camera	2	4	8
Total			190.6

You've got an efficient fridge/freezer, when running ours draws around twice that.

Without intermittent devices running the background here is around 90W, and if I turn off our two PCs (I have the habit of leaving mine on 24/7) it falls to 50W. Intermittents kicking in takes it from 90W to 240W.

 

[jpaul]

fridge/freezer 80/20W are consistent with being average power draw, which you'd expect him to tabulate, many products you can just read the label ..

those where you can't are the problem - to wit washing machine / hob / kettle / coffee machine ... unless you put a power monitor on each of them.
if we had a decent smart meter implementation we'd have a historic graph available via app, at fine resolution like 30s/1min where you could review and attribute power consumption to devices you knew you had used. (you can buy, or diy, such clamp/pulse-count add ons for your meter .. but it annoys me that I need to)

 

[Graetzbridge]

True.

Perhaps you may know that was an electrical engineer.. The particular field was industrial variable speed drives. Quite often that was systems for water companies and electrical efficiency was paramount. The difference of 95% or 95.5% could or will or lose the project. My domestic electrify has reflected that. I don't waste power, we use LED lights, we shower not a bath, our washing machine is on the lowest setting, things like that. Recently my wife has got am Instant Pot. It is much more efficient than conventional cookers. We try.

 

[Graetzbridge]

You've got an efficient fridge/freezer, when running ours draws around twice that.

Without intermittent devices running the background here is around 90W, and if I turn off our two PCs (I have the habit of leaving mine on 24/7) it falls to 50W. Intermittents kicking in takes it from 90W to 240W.

The requirement is for energy in kWh rather than Watts, A typical residence is around 10 kWh per 24 hours.

 

[BUDFORCE]

those where you can't are the problem - to wit washing machine / hob / kettle / coffee machine

Most of those are usually...... quite easy to Google, just put the make and model and power draw.

But I wouldn't be worrying about this things anyway, if it's something you need to use then fine, it's not wasted energy.

It's the things that are literally on standby or left on for no good reason.

 

[413x]

All in going to give you is my base rate.

This is not putting the TV off at the wall type.

70W

Stuff on
Fridge (inactive)
Freezer x2 (inactive)
Nixie clock
Microwave with clock
Cooker with clock
Router
2 Google nest speakers
2 Google security cams
TV standby
Robot vacuum standby
Amplifier standby
Subwoofer standby
Electric shower standby
Tado heat thermostat
Chrome cast standby
Switch console standby
Printer standby
Various chargers (some with leds) and standby
Laptop chargers with laptop charged
Tablet standby
Boiler standby

Probably other stuff I've missed

imagine turning all that off for. 70w

 

[jpaul]

Most of those are usually...... quite easy to Google, just put the make and model and power draw.

they're not - if you have a couple of rings of the hob on for 30-40mins say, or the oven on at 180c for 90 minutes ..?
if you knew that oven was 2Kwhr total consumption, then you might be more frugal about using it multiple times a week,
at the april23 80p/unit , you coulbe at £10/week for that appliance.

 

[BUDFORCE]

they're not - if you have a couple of rings of the hob on for 30-40mins say, or the oven on at 180c for 90 minutes ..?
if you knew that oven was 2Kwhr total consumption, then you might be more frugal about using it multiple times a week,
at the april23 80p/unit , you coulbe at £10/week for that appliance.

Kettles normally 3kw.

Modern Washing machine/dishwasher maybe 1kw per cycle.

If you tell me the make and model of your oven/hob and coffee machine I could look it up.

You have to use a bit of maths, kettle is 3kw so if left on 1 hour it's 3kwh or 3 units, obviously you don't leave your kettle on 1 hour. Washing machines and dishwashers normal per cycle (so regardless of time) that's why eco cycles are often much longer.

Microwaves as a rough guide normally use about double they power rating, eg 800w microwave pulls double from the wall.

 

[Troop]

Yesterdays background use, router/fridgefreezer/intel Nuc i3

 

[Graetzbridge]

You have to use a bit of maths, kettle is 3kw so if left on 1 hour it's 3kwh or 3 units, obviously you don't leave your kettle on 1 hour.

That was the point I was making. The energy is in kWh.

 

[BUDFORCE]

I think a good rule of thumb to follow is anything that generates heat uses lots of power.

Ovens, kettles, clothes irons, hair dryers, microwaves, tumble dryer, electric oven and hob, any type of electrical heating system. Dishwashers and washing machines as they heat water, altough modern ones are reasonably efficient.

But as I said earlier if you are using these then fair enough, its used energy as a pose to wasted background draw, which I think was the intention of this thread, so going off topic really.

What I am interested in, is if turning items off at the wall you dont use overnight (TV's etc) stress the capacitors and reduce life?

I read somewhere PC power supplies dont like being turned off at the wall?

But I keep meaning to go around the house and start sperating everything that is plugged into multi plug sockets into things that need to be left on, and things that can turn off. Most homes have double plug sockets, so if you run two multi plug extensions, have 1 where you leave stuff on as it needs, and the other switch off at the wall, even if its 20-30 watts saved, thats 7-8 hours, every night, its going to start adding up. I am certain that a good proportion of energy use is background draw 24 hr stuff, you think your 3kw kettle as power hungry, but realistically that is on for what, at the most 20 minutes a day if you have 5-6 hot drinks? or 1kwh (1 unit). If you have stuff drawing say even as little as 50w in the background leeching power needlessly, thats 1.2kwh per day more than using your kettle.

A good example is behind my TV, on the same extension I have a TV, HTPC, fibre modem, router, and nindento Wii (4 year old plays it) I keep meaning to sort out the plugs, so the TV, Wii, HTPC can be switched off without the other stuff that needs to be left on.

 

[SDK^]

I think a good rule of thumb to follow is anything that generates heat uses lots of power.

Dishwashers and washing machines as they heat water, although modern ones are reasonably efficient.

I've found it's worth using Eco modes on a dishwasher and washing machine - whilst it will extend the time of the wash, it reduces the number of heat cycles to just one, rather than three+ heat cycles on the other modes. Spinning the drum or spindles for longer uses much less energy than additional heat cycles.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

We hover between 150-300w minimum draw. The time you add up fridge/freezer, alarm system, cctv, router etc it all adds up. I’ve unplugged everything else. Now I’ve permanently turned off our hot tub our energy bill will probably go down.

In our 2nd home, other than the fridge/freezer we’ll switch everything else off.

 

[Dangerous Dave]

It's worth going through the background usage I've managed to reduce it by 30-40% ish not huge savings to be made for most at current rates but come the 80p a unit next year it looks like it will hit that will be knocking on £100 a month for just background usage where small changes could save you hundreds over the year.

I agree with SDK using ECO mode on the dishwasher knocks around half a KW off the cycle, doesn't sound much but at 80p a unit and using the dishwasher every day that's £10 saving a month for using a different mode.

 

[Simon42]

My background is a fraction under 400W which isn't good.

200W (not including UPS overhead) is my network kit, lots of cameras and a server which is doing a lot of processing for CCTV including AI.

Of the remaining 200W there were only a few surprises when checking equipment. Each of my three UPS devices (CyberPower CP1500EPFCLCD) use 17W even with no load. I knew they weren't 100% efficient in use even when on mains, but had expected the no load use/base overhead to be more 5 to 10W max, not 17W. So that's another ~50W overhead leaving about 150W

Most of the rest it the two fridge freezers, AV kit (20W), alarm system (5W) and the usual chargers and smart home stuff. The only other surprise was a shredder using 5W when idle which it its 99.9% of the time! It's just got a tiny sensor that trips a relay when paper is inserted so that's a bit excessive especially as it doesn't have an easy to access power button but its now off until needed.

 

[BUDFORCE]

I've gone around just now, in about half an hour just by rearranging plug sockets and extensions so I can turn stuff off at the wall, I've already stopped several things from being on standby needlessly:

- Main TV downstairs
- Roku box
- Chromecast
- Nintendo Wii
-TV aerial signal booster
- Soundbar
- Stereo
- 3 PC monitors
- Freeview box
- Small PC speaker system
- Work laptop docking station
- Phone charger

I have no idea what the total of that lot of standby was.

 

[413x]

We hover between 150-300w minimum draw. The time you add up fridge/freezer, alarm system, cctv, router etc it all adds up. I’ve unplugged everything else. Now I’ve permanently turned off our hot tub our energy bill will probably go down.

In our 2nd home, other than the fridge/freezer we’ll switch everything else off.

Dunno what to do with our tub. Can you even get anything for them selling?

Hasn't been on since last year

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Dunno what to do with our tub. Can you even get anything for them selling?

Hasn't been on since last year

I’ll probably just keep it just in case we use it one day. Our circumstances have changed slightly since buying it, so it won’t get used enough to warrant the cost.

Just looked at our smart meter and we’ve used £10 gas/electricity this week, a week when we haven’t been here. Not too bad. Funny to have even used £1.78 when the heating/hot water is off, that’s the boiler pilot light I guess.

 

[Graetzbridge]

We hover between 150-300w minimum draw.

But what is it for the energy in kWh per day? That's that's determines your energy bill.