Sitting on the floor of my living room playing a board game with the boys, I noticed that my TV box was whirring away even though it was supposedly in standby mode. This got me thinking about how much energy it must be using for the hours and hours a day it is not actually used.
I know I have heard over the years that you should switch off plugs when they are not in use but I hadn’t really paid that much attention or thought that it would make much difference, obviously I was wrong.
According to research, standby mode can add up to be about 10% of an average households electricity use, and standby power is responsible for about 1% of global CO2 emissions!
How can I ignore that?!
So starting with the easy ones, I have turned off (at the plug) the TV in the playroom, the music speakers, DVD player, tumble drier, printer, hairdryer, toaster, sensor nightlights, a couple of lamps that never get used, and the power strip in the office that has the laptop and phone charger. All of these plugs are easy to reach and so it really won’t be any inconvenience.
The biggest culprits of standby power usage are apparently home entertainments systems and computers. So the most important change for me will be the TV in the living room and the TV box which I now switch off when I go to bed and then it isn’t turned on again until after the kids get home from school. This is going to add up to be quite a significant amount of power saved just in itself.
The other change in habit that is taking a while to adjust to is the charging of mobile phones and ipads, apparently I should just be charging them for the couple of hours that they need (rather than leaving them overnight). If you don’t switch off/unplug them when they are fully charged they continue to use power. So I now try to do this before I go to bed or when I first get up.
I also need to get into a routine of turning off my cordless vacuum cleaner once it is fully charged. This is going to be a bit more tricky as it takes quite a while, so I am going to try hanging something on the cupboard door when it is charging so it reminds me to switch it off.
The final big change that I have made is to turn off the WIFI router at night. The hard bit at the moment is remembering to switch it back on again in the mornings and then giving it 5 minutes to get going again. The danger is forgetting to turn it on and then using my mobile data by mistake.
Reading the articles on this it is embarrassing how many years it has taken me to listen but I am finally here and doing something about it. Some of these changes are easy to make and some are a bit off a faff, but it mainly comes down to a change of behaviour so hopefully it will just become a natural habit over time.
The amount of electricity that will be saved is worth the extra thought and surely the extra bending and stretching for the plug can be counted as exercise?
Picture: The office power strip, which is a tip for turning off multiple plugs quicker.