{"id":32643,"date":"2017-01-23T08:17:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T08:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/?p=32643"},"modified":"2020-04-10T11:22:44","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T10:22:44","slug":"going-solar-part-4-i-measure-every-247-electrical-device-in-the-automated-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/carbon-footprint\/going-solar-part-4-i-measure-every-247-electrical-device-in-the-automated-home.html","title":{"rendered":"Going Solar Part 4 \u2013 I Measure Every 24\/7 Electrical Device in the Automated Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As we mentioned in <a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/going-solar-part-2-costs-incentives-payback-time.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Part 2<\/a>, the Automated Home&#8217;s base line&nbsp;energy consumption is terrible. There&#8217;s no point creating all this energy and then throwing it away.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"sj-gblock\">\n<script language=\"javascript\">\n<!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5598479065369258\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 300; \ngoogle_ad_height = 250; \ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\"; \ngoogle_ad_channel = \"7058025304\"; \ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\"; \ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\"; \ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\"; \ngoogle_color_link = \"52a79f\"; \ngoogle_color_url = \"CFFFDF\"; \ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\"; \n\/\/--> \n<\/script>\n<script language=\"javascript\"  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>But which are the most inefficient appliances? In an effort to find out&nbsp;I decided to work my way round the house&nbsp;room by room, measuring each device that&#8217;s permanently plugged in and powered on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m not claiming these figures are super accurate. I used an earlier version of this&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Energenie-ENER007-Power-Meter\/dp\/B003ELLGDC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475745707&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=energenie+power&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=ah4-21&amp;linkId=5b725bad749f11b919cfef052a2b0a19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Energenie Power Monitor<\/a> to take the measurements. Some device&#8217;s consumption&nbsp;varied wildly over time, some may reach a deeper sleep level than I measured at while&nbsp;others measured 0.00 where they were clearly&nbsp;consuming at least some power (if relatively&nbsp;little).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With that said, here&#8217;s some of the results&nbsp;that I found most interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Interesting&nbsp;Stuff<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Our&nbsp;8 year old (and still fabulous) <strong>Pioneer Plasma<\/strong> is one of the biggest energy guzzlers&nbsp;in the house at nearly a third of a kilowatt when in use. Thankfully thought it has a reasonable (for its age) 0.9 watt&nbsp;standby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our&nbsp;<strong>Philips Hue<\/strong> White bulbs measure 0.00 when&nbsp;&#8216;off&#8217; whilst the similar <strong>Belkin WeMo<\/strong> bulb showed a&nbsp;0.7 watt consumption in the same state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the study our rarely used <strong>HP laser printer<\/strong> topped out at over 700w while in use. It&#8217;s standby consumption was hard to measure as it varied a lot, but it&#8217;s now unplugged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The house WiFi was provided by an <strong>Apple Airport Extreme<\/strong> that used a constant 9w.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bedside&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/useful-gadget-of-the-week-portapow-2-5a-quad-usb-wall-charger.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PortaPow<\/a>&nbsp;<strong>USB chargers<\/strong> measured 0.00 on standby whilst our&nbsp;newer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Anker-PowerPort-Family-Sized-Technology-Smartphones\/dp\/B00PK1IIJY\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474727949&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=Anker+PowerPort+6&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=ah4-21&amp;linkId=8385a355545de9c17a580b61bdde437d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anker PowerPort 6<\/a> idles at nearly 1 watt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A 32&#8243; <strong>LG&nbsp;TV<\/strong> in one of the bedrooms halved it&#8217;s consumption (going from around 120w in use to 68w) by setting energy saver to medium. It&#8217;s standby consumption is 0.9w.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two screens&nbsp;on one of the PCs showed how things have moved on recently. An older 19&#8243; <strong>LCD monitor<\/strong> consumes more than 2.5 times the&nbsp;power in use of&nbsp;a contemporary and larger 24&#8243; LED panel (18w vs 47w)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sony&#8217;s <strong>PS4<\/strong> costs next to nothing on Standby whilst the <strong>PS3<\/strong> may cost you around a&nbsp;quid a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"277\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/sky-q-silver-back.jpg?resize=1000%2C277&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Sky Q\" class=\"wp-image-30329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/sky-q-silver-back.jpg?w=1000&amp;ssl=1 1000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/sky-q-silver-back.jpg?resize=300%2C83&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/sky-q-silver-back.jpg?resize=768%2C213&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sonos &amp; Sky Shock<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One&nbsp;of the biggest surprises was our&nbsp;<strong>Sonos<\/strong> system with some very high standby values. <a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/sonos-s5-zoneplayer-hands-on-mini-review.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The S5<\/a> (Play:5 predecessor) was the highest measuring 8.8w in standby. My readings&nbsp;agree with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sonos.custhelp.com\/app\/answers\/detail\/a_id\/260\/~\/sonos-power-consumption-when-idle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">official sonos values<\/a>&nbsp;too meaning our 7 piece&nbsp;system costs almost&nbsp;\u00a340 a&nbsp;year on standby. Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We love our new <strong>Sky Q<\/strong> system (<a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/sky-q-review-an-installation-story-real-world-impressions.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">read our review here<\/a>) but it has a dirty little secret too. It costs almost \u00a360 per year to run the main box plus the 3 minis. I went searching for the official consumption figures for the new Sky boxes and here&#8217;s the helpful line from the specs&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Total Energy Consumption in line with Voluntary&nbsp;Industry Agreement for Complex STBs<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Hmmmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><figure><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ikea-nittio-led-edison-flux-bulb.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-29304\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ikea-nittio-led-edison-flux-bulb.jpg?resize=200%2C273&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"ikea-nittio-led-edison-flux-bulb\" width=\"200\" height=\"273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ikea-nittio-led-edison-flux-bulb.jpg?w=366&amp;ssl=1 366w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ikea-nittio-led-edison-flux-bulb.jpg?resize=220%2C300&amp;ssl=1 220w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>Scheduled&nbsp;Savings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My son&#8217;s bedroom has a lot of kit, including a <strong>gaming PC<\/strong> rig with 2 monitors, TV, Sonos etc. We found this system on its own ate 28w with everything in standby. We separated off his network switch and WiFi access point and connected the rest to&nbsp;a<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2jiSAWX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> SmartThings Power Outlet (\u00a345)<\/a>&nbsp;and set a schedule where it&#8217;s only on a few&nbsp;hours each&nbsp;day now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This makes economic sense with a payback time of around 2 years on the smart switch. Much less with something like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Energenie-MIHO002-Adapters-Pack-3-x\/dp\/B00V52HTJC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1478691381&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=mihome&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=ah4-21&amp;linkId=c8054836ab2a453ac5822a74a7e8ebd7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Energenie&nbsp;Mi|Home module<\/a> that&#8217;s less than \u00a310 and compatible with <a href=\"https:\/\/ifttt.com\/energenie_mi_home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IFTTT<\/a>&nbsp;(once you add the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Energenie-MIHO001-Gateway\/dp\/B00V52HTXS\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1478691381&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=mihome&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=ah4-21&amp;linkId=583a2989a144aae4a3dbd286427025d2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Energenie&nbsp;Gateway<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other items&nbsp;like this <a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/lighting\/ikea-nittio-bulbs-give-cool-edison-filament-look-with-1-8w-led-efficiency.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.8w Ikea LED hall light<\/a> costs a little over \u00a32 per year to run 24\/7 so adding any form of automation would probably not make economic sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Good Rule of Thumb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/synology_1813%2B_4tb_red.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/synology_1813%2B_4tb_red.jpg?resize=300%2C225&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"synology_1813+_4tb_red\" class=\"wp-image-21392\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/synology_1813%2B_4tb_red.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/synology_1813%2B_4tb_red.jpg?resize=768%2C575&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/synology_1813%2B_4tb_red.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking today&#8217;s electricity prices (\u00a30.1343 for us currently) then here&#8217;s a good rule of thumb to work out a rough annual running costs of a 24\/7 device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking its rating in watts and multiply it by 1.2 gives you a rough cost in \u00a3&#8217;s. For example we measured our <a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/our-new-home-server-isnt-a-server-the-synology-1813-nas-review.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Synology 1813+<\/a> <strong>NAS<\/strong> as using 46 watts&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>46 watts x 1.2 = \u00a355 annual running cost<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if the Synology serves us for around 7 years &#8211; the time our&nbsp;2 previous home servers lasted &#8211; then this single device will have burnt through almost&nbsp;\u00a3400 worth of electricity. Sobering thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Low Energy Appliances<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are other devices around the home which we couldn&#8217;t measure easily &#8211; for example a big rack&nbsp;of X10 dimmers and appliance modules in the loft, various central heating components etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s something very few of us do, but we should all be looking at power consumption figures for the products we buy,&nbsp;especially fridges and freezers &#8211; where you should go for A+ or better. Things have got a lot better in recent times with retailers showing annual running costs for appliances now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fridges and Freezers are more difficult to measure because of the stop \/ start nature of their motors. In a future part of this review series we&#8217;ll look at a high-tech energy monitor that can give you most of this information, including for individual appliance, with out all this hard work&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p >No products found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>Read the full Going Solar Series&#8230;<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/going-solar-part-1-installing-a-4kw-pv-array-at-the-automated-home.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Going Solar Part 1 \u2013 Installing a 4kW PV Array at the Automated Home<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/going-solar-part-2-costs-incentives-payback-time.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Going Solar Part 2 \u2013 Costs, Incentives &amp; Payback Time<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/reviews\/going-solar-part-3-i-traded-in-my-range-rover-for-a-nissan-leaf.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Going Solar Part 3 \u2013 I Traded in my Range Rover for a Nissan Leaf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/carbon-footprint\/going-solar-part-4-i-measure-every-247-electrical-device-in-the-automated-home.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Going Solar Part 4 \u2013 I Measure Every 24\/7 Electrical Device in the Automated Home<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/carbon-footprint\/going-solar-part-5-our-pv-systems-actual-generation-figures-after-first-full-year.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Going Solar Part 5 &#8211; Our PV Systems Actual Generation Figures After First Full Year<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/carbon-footprint\/going-solar-part-6-entire-first-years-fuel-costs-for-nissan-leaf-ev-235.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Going Solar Part 6 \u2013 Entire First Years \u2018Fuel\u2019 Costs for Nissan Leaf EV \u2013 \u00a3235<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we mentioned in Part 2, the Automated Home&#8217;s base line&nbsp;energy consumption is terrible. There&#8217;s no point creating all this energy and then throwing it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2017-01-23T08:17:22Z","apple_news_api_id":"d79828af-efb1-403a-a967-e86cd5af78cb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2020-04-10T10:22:56Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A15gor--xQDqpZ-hs1a94yw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carbon-footprint"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/husqvarna-automower-power-watts.jpg?fit=800%2C527&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32643"}],"version-history":[{"count":80,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49872,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32643\/revisions\/49872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}