Can you kill a watt?

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Cindy Parker

Plug loads, parasite loads, energy vampires – call them what you want, they suck electricity through your account and spit it back out as a charge on your bill.

It’s the devices around your house (or business) that continuously use energy even when they are not in use.

Computers, TVs, routers, cable boxes, office coffee machines, water coolers, printers, copiers – the list goes on - equipment that always consumes energy whether powered on or switched off. “Off” doesn’t necessarily mean “no power” unless you are “off” at the plug.

If you thought your refrigerator was using a lot of electrical power – your cable set “top box” may be using even more than the old Kelvinator™.

A recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) indicates that a cable box and a digital video recorder (DVR) are now the biggest electrical consumers in many homes. These little background devices (think electrical appliance) can use more power than a 21 cubic foot “energy efficient” refrigerator.

Across the country, these little energy leeches, numbering over 150 million in American homes, consume more than 27 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year. The staggering price tag for this plug load is about $3 billion on an annual basis. The three main reasons that the cable-set top boxes use so much power: they are powered “on” continuously, they are not manufactured with efficiency as a concern, as spoiled Americans – our definition of ON means NOW.

For the equipment to be powered on 100 percent of the time means that Americans pay $1 billion a year to use the equipment and $2 billion a year not to use the equipment. (Unless you never sleep, leave the couch or never stop recording programs.)

Unlike European DVR and cable receiver boxes, most of the models available in the U.S. do not have a “standby” or “sleep” mode that reduces energy consumption by up to 95 percent.

Finally, as the “we want it now” culture, depending on your location and cable provider, for the systems to recover from actually being turned – may take more than just a few minutes.

This NRDC chart provides a graphic indication of the cable box/DVR power vampire.

Other items you may not immediately consider that are continuously spinning the wheels of your electric meter: fax machines, alarm systems, answering machines, paper shredders, even electric staplers and pencil sharpeners. Almost any electronic item with a sensor has continuous power consumption. These may be motion sensors, proximity sensors, heat sensors – any number of devices – they’ve got power.

How can you assess the plug loads and energy vampires in your home or office? Measure the watts and determine what can be eliminated.

A simple to use “plug load measuring” device is available at many hardware and home improvement stores that will provide this information. One of the local libraries even provides the KILL-A-WATT unit as an item that can be checked on your library card. This device plugs in to your electric outlet, then you “piggyback” plug in the appliance you want to measure. A digital readout will indicate the power used, whether the appliance is turned off or turned on.

For many items, the easiest solution is a power strip. Power strips are great for TVs, gaming and home theater systems. All devices plugged into the power strip can be turned off (definitively) at the switch on the power strip. If powering on and off is too much trouble, plug the power strip into a timer and eliminate at least a few hours a day that you are not feeding the power parasite.

The answer is yes, you can kill a watt - if only you try!