Background electricity usage

[BUDFORCE]

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

1kw is 1000w.

A "unit" is usually defined as 1kwh, or, running an item that uses 1kw for an hour.

So, in the above he said it varies between 150-300 watts. Let say, we we take an average 225w.

Thats .225kw, if left on for one hour.

So if it's left on for 24 hours, that's 5.4kwh.

If your electricity company charges you say 35p a unit, that's 5.4 x .35 which works out at £1.89 per day.

That excludes standing charge don't forget.

Basically £680 a year at 35p a unit.

Obviously when you start talking 60-70 pence per unit you can see how this stuff ends up costing.

 

[Troop]

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

Taking the middle of his figure 225W = 5.4Kw per day

 

[CaptainRAVE]

32.8kwh electricity in the last week apparently. 0.98kwh of gas. The smart meter equates that to around £10. Probably doesn’t include the standing charge. Shouldn’t be much higher when we’re all back in work in a few weeks.

 

[Graetzbridge]

Taking the middle of his figure 225W = 5.4Kw per day

The UK average domestic residence is 10kWh per day. 5.4 kW power is rate which is an instant value, kWh is energy.

 

[BigChin1]

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.

Discovered this myself at the weekend. I have 2x APC Back-UPS ES 700 units, and found when idling (battery fully charged, no devices connected) to be consuming ~30W each! That would be around £150 per year at current SVR to protect from power cuts that hardly ever happen around here (not yet anyway). So they've been unplugged for now and just using surge strips instead. Got my base load down to 85W.

 

[Simon42]

I have 2x APC Back-UPS ES 700 units, and found when idling (battery fully charged, no devices connected) to be consuming ~30W each!

Yikes, and I thought 17W was bad per UPS!

I have been considering replacing two with a bigger unit but tried that 6 years ago and ended up with a fairly large APC unit that had an annoying fan which ran every 6 to 12 hours when topping up the battery. Given idle power results like yours there's also no guarantee that other/larger units wouldn't just use more power when idle.

 

[Harnser]

Yikes, and I thought 17W was bad per UPS!

I have been considering replacing two with a bigger unit but tried that 6 years ago and ended up with a fairly large APC unit that had an annoying fan which ran every 6 to 12 hours when topping up the battery. Given idle power results like yours there's also no guarantee that other/larger units wouldn't just use more power when idle.

Serious question: do you still need them? IME power cuts are (have been) extremely uncommon the last decade, and surges nothing like 20 years ago. I used to have a UPS but in the 10+ years since I stopped using one I haven't had any damage from an uncontrolled shutdown - and I leave my PC on 24/7.

If you're running multi-day simulations at home where restarting in the event of an outage is a PITA I get the need is still there to have one.

 

[jpaul]

if you google - maybe the UPS's have a low power factor and have fooled your measures - have you measured kwh/energy (over a time period)

 

[Simon42]

Serious question: do you still need them? IME power cuts are (have been) extremely uncommon the last decade, and surges nothing like 20 years ago. I used to have a UPS but in the 10+ years since I stopped using one I haven't had any damage from an uncontrolled shutdown - and I leave my PC on 24/7.

If you're running multi-day simulations at home where restarting in the event of an outage is a PITA I get the need is still there to have one.

I have a complex home network (6 switches, 4 access points, lots of CCTV etc) and a couple of 24x7 servers and restart order is also important so backup power is essential even with reliable mains.

Sadly we also suffer from very brief drops of power just long enough to shut down devices a couple of times a week as well as surges.

 

[Bluecube]

Discovered this myself at the weekend. I have 2x APC Back-UPS ES 700 units, and found when idling (battery fully charged, no devices connected) to be consuming ~30W each! That would be around £150 per year at current SVR to protect from power cuts that hardly ever happen around here (not yet anyway). So they've been unplugged for now and just using surge strips instead. Got my base load down to 85W.

Thanks for this info as I thought it was just me. I have a cheap APC UPS which apparently draws between 70 and 80W at the plug. The connected server reports that it only uses between 42 and 56W. I’m in two minds as to whether to disconnect the UPS as if my server loses power then I’ve got four VMs that will then refuse to work correctly. A 30W extra draw is a lot especially at future electricity prices.

 

[mattyfez]

There are only 3 things in my house that are always on.

Router
Fridge
Freezer

Everything else gets switched off if not in use.

 

[Molep]

0.1kwh during the small hours according to octopus energy.

That's with sub, TV, avr, freesat, phone chargers x5, microwave, google speakers x4, amz echo, network switch, router, deco mesh x3, pc tfts x4, laptop chargers x2, fridge, bluray, xbox one s/x, etc. all on/standby/low pwr standby.

in my opinion consumer equipment is not designed to be constantly turned off and on.

 

[jpaul]

yes I agree - I don't thermal cycle the audio amplifier - I'm prepared to trade-off life-span for some additional electrcity cost,
still it represents good business for chip industry I work in.

 

[jonneymendoza]

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

I couldn't really use a smart plug on my sky as I watch f1 and sometimes it's on in silly O clock hours or during the day.

Sky also takes like 24th before you can even watch it on demand... So I have to have my sky on to record it if I'm away.

My desktop pc draws like 5 to 7w when it's off!

 

[sovietspybob]

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

Well some simple maths will say that 150w of constant draw will be 3.6kwh over 24 hours and constant draw of 300w will be 7.2kwh.

We've just been away for 7 days and the house seemed to average around 2.5 to 3kwh when we weren't here which is consistent with our base draw of around 120w, it used to be over 300w until i went round everything with a watt metre, i need to do it all again to see if i can reduce anything else but i think most of it for us is the fridge freezer and then our youview box which is about 30watts even in standby.

 

[Graetzbridge]

Well some simple maths will say that 150w of constant draw will be 3.6kwh over 24 hours and constant draw of 300w will be 7.2kwh.

Oh, I think I understand the maths.

 

[Simon42]

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 I messed this test up.

I have two of these UPS devices under a long desk powering a mixing of devices via several extension blocks. When testing the UPS for the main PC I missed it was also powering a small 8 port Ubiquiti switch which used to be on the other UPS, in addition to the expected PC and 3 of its monitors which I did turn off.

A re-test without that switch on shows around 4.6W with no load. In use there is additional loss depending on load wattage, but testing various loads from 50W to 500W shows its not too bad and far better than a APC UPS I compared with. If you really need backup power you have to accept some overhead but these CyberPower sine wave units do seem reasonably efficient.

 

[Harnser]

I did some more testing this morning and got the background load down to 31W which is modem, router, switch and Unifi AP.

93W is what's more normal as the fridge sits and hums away.

Surprise draw was the microwave when not running - a constant 3W. It's now turned off at the wall and my partner got why when I explained that was over £13/yr at 50p/kWh to avoid flicking the plug on before using it.

 

[Russinating]

Would be nice if the fridge was on a separate circuit so you could just flick the whole fuseboard off when leaving vacant for a period of time...

 

[Gammawolf]

Noticed no one has mentioned house alarms system or electric garage door openers. They were additional things i had not considered when i ran through this exercise. Also if you have a central heating pump (still used to recharge a hot water tank) usually they are set on max and left. Newer pumps have various settings for the CC, CP and PP curves