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> Excessive standby power consumption is a big problem. There are lots of devices, especially TVs, which consume far too much power when supposedly off Is this

> Excessive standby power consumption is a big problem. There are lots of devices, especially TVs, which consume far too much power when supposedly off Is this really a problem anymore? I have a five year old 50" plasma, and it draws 0.12 W in standby. That's not "excessive", it's a rounding error. It's 1 kWh per year, or roughly 0.6 kg of CO2; the same as idling your car for an extra 2 seconds every day.

undersuit 10y ago
Yeah, but that's just you. There were 200+ million TVs sold each year from 2011-2015.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  200+ GWh/year is a rounding error on world scale, where yearly total electricity generation is at least 1e5 times larger.
  - undersuit 10y ago
    Just TVs. Just one type of consumer product needs a full Power Plant added to the earth every year to support their standby draw. Yes this assumes that a significant proportion will be plugged in, but it adds up. Just TVs, not monitors, not computers, not audio receivers, not game consoles, not microwave ovens, not etc. I doubt the cost of designing this converter even approaches the yearly cost of a power plant.
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      200 GWh/year is a little less than 23 MW. A full power plant is on the order of several hundred MW to around a GW. You also don't need to replace the power plant every year. I agree that standby power usage is terribly wasteful but your calculation is off by a large factor.
      - nwah1 10y ago
        Given the Jevons Paradox, we can predict that the lower energy use will translate to higher demand for IoT technologies, thus increasing the world energy requirements for these devices.
philipkglass 10y ago
The mean power consumption is significantly higher than the median because the worst offenders are drawing tens of watts in standby mode. For example, this 4 year old Philips TV that is at 30 watts in standby: http://www.supportforum.philips.com/en/showthread.php?15754-Philips-violatig-EU-law-1275-2008-for-power-consumption-in-Standby-mode-(30-Watts!) http://www.supportforum.philips.com/en/showthread.php?15754-... Cable/satellite boxes also frequently draw multiple watts in standby or "off". If every bit of consumer electronics were as thrifty with standby as your TV, it wouldn't be a problem anymore. (I'll add: my iPod Touch can "wake up" instantly when I interact with it after days sitting unplugged, and that's drawing from a tiny battery. Even 120 mW is far above the lower bound of what's necessary to build a complex device with fast wakeup upon user interaction.) (Second edit: the power converter that started this discussion is obviously targeted at much lower power applications than even an iPod, so it's not really relevant to anything that can be plugged in at home.)
- deleted 10y ago
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undersuit 10y ago

Yeah, but that's just you. There were 200+ million TVs sold each year from 2011-2015.

jacobolus 10y ago
200+ GWh/year is a rounding error on world scale, where yearly total electricity generation is at least 1e5 times larger.
- undersuit 10y ago
  Just TVs. Just one type of consumer product needs a full Power Plant added to the earth every year to support their standby draw. Yes this assumes that a significant proportion will be plugged in, but it adds up. Just TVs, not monitors, not computers, not audio receivers, not game consoles, not microwave ovens, not etc. I doubt the cost of designing this converter even approaches the yearly cost of a power plant.
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    200 GWh/year is a little less than 23 MW. A full power plant is on the order of several hundred MW to around a GW. You also don't need to replace the power plant every year. I agree that standby power usage is terribly wasteful but your calculation is off by a large factor.
    - nwah1 10y ago
      Given the Jevons Paradox, we can predict that the lower energy use will translate to higher demand for IoT technologies, thus increasing the world energy requirements for these devices.

philipkglass 10y ago

The mean power consumption is significantly higher than the median because the worst offenders are drawing tens of watts in standby mode. For example, this 4 year old Philips TV that is at 30 watts in standby: http://www.supportforum.philips.com/en/showthread.php?15754-Philips-violatig-EU-law-1275-2008-for-power-consumption-in-Standby-mode-(30-Watts!) http://www.supportforum.philips.com/en/showthread.php?15754-... Cable/satellite boxes also frequently draw multiple watts in standby or "off". If every bit of consumer electronics were as thrifty with standby as your TV, it wouldn't be a problem anymore. (I'll add: my iPod Touch can "wake up" instantly when I interact with it after days sitting unplugged, and that's drawing from a tiny battery. Even 120 mW is far above the lower bound of what's necessary to build a complex device with fast wakeup upon user interaction.) (Second edit: the power converter that started this discussion is obviously targeted at much lower power applications than even an iPod, so it's not really relevant to anything that can be plugged in at home.)

deleted 10y ago
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