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Do
things use energy when they're turned
off?
I heard that an
electrical wiring problem can lead to electricity
"leaking" out of the wires and into the abyss,
causing a person to pay for electricity that they
don't use. --
Kathie T., 9-08
No. You can check this yourself. Turn
off everything in your home (and unplug things
that use standby
power, like TV's and microwaves), and go
look at your electric meter, and notice it isn't
spinning any more.
I've heard several
times that toaster ovens use electricity even when
they're off. Is that true?
-- Matthew A.
d'Allesio, Berkeley, CA, 2-01
Not unless it has a clock of some kind,
and I've never seen a toaster oven with one. You
can use the How to
measure electrical use section to test for
yourself whether your toaster oven is drawing
current or not when it's off.
Some devices like microwaves & VCR's draw
a small amount to power the time display, often
5 watts or less. Devices which run off
transformers also draw a small amount of power,
typically 1-5W. There's more about this on our
page about stuff that
uses energy even when it's off. You can find
out how much any device uses, even when it's
off, on our How to
Measure Energy Use page.
If an appliance is
turned off but the wall switch is left on does this
use electricity?
-- Alison Payne,
5-01
No. Remember, though, that some devices
draw a small amount of current even when they're
"off", as explained on our How
much does it use? page.
If you turn on the
switch to operate a lamp, and the lamp has no light
bulb, does it consume any electricity?
-- Karla Parks,
7-03
No, it doesn't. Same as if it has a
light bulb that's burned out -- no energy used.
I remember wondering about this myself when I
was a kid. Little did I know I would grow up to
answer that very question on the Internet.
Other General
Questions & Comments
 I
think you're misleading people. The real savings to
be had is by turning off things that run all the
time, like computers, and things that use standby
power. Affecting real change on big appliances etc.
is expensive, and hard to do with very long
paybacks. This encourages apathy and besides, in
all those cases, the device is usually doing
something useful, cooling, heating, etc. What I
learned and recommend is to make your list by
time-on, forget doing all the calculations or
measuring of watts and getting confused between
watts and kilowatts and kilowatt hours. If you quit
giving people the wrong info they wont need to ask
so many questions.
-- Mark Renfrow, April
2009
Thanks for dissing my life's work. In
any event, the answer to part of your complaint
is that you're not ready carefully, and the
other part is that you're simply wrong.
- It's bizarre that you're chastising me for
not focusing on standby power. Besides the fact
that I do cover
standby power and list eight separate ways to
reduce it, I also point out that it's only
5% of a home's energy use for most people. That
is, it uses less energy than just about anything
else in the average home. As you can see in the
pie chart (which appears throughout the site),
there are huge savings to be had in most areas
other than standby power. I would be
irresponsible if I insisted that people chase
the least important item to them, which
is what you want me to do.
As for computers, my computers page does
recommend that people sleep their computers,
and I've said so for years.
- Looking only at time-on is wrong because
some things use a lot more energy than others. A
2.5-ton central AC system uses 700 times as much
energy as a device in standby that uses only 5
watts. Total energy is the rate of consumption
times the amount of time the item is on.
You have to look at both. You can't look at
simply one or the other. That's why my electricity
calculator accounts for both the energy rate
and the amount of time the item is on.
- Effecting big change in appliances is
not expensive or difficult. It takes no
effort to wash your clothes in cold water
instead of hot. It takes little effort to turn
off the AC and use a ceiling fan instead. It
takes little effort to use space heaters only in
the rooms you're using rather than trying to
heat your whole house. I have tons of practical
tips on my heating,
cooling, lighting,
and other pages, all of which work, and many of
which are decidedly easy to implement.
- I explain what watts,
kilowatts, and kilowatt-hours are because
some people want to know. And in any
event, just like if you want to save money you
have to know what a dollar is, if you want to
save electricity it's helpful to know what a
kilowatt-hour is.
Can you explain in
detail how you only use 160 kilowatt-hours a month?
-- Caroline
Baratta, May 2005
Good question! Here's my rough
estimate.
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6 kWh
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15-watt CFL light in my home office, on
12 hours a day every day (15 watts x 12 h
x 30.43 d)
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117 kWh
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Ancient refrigerator (from my
refrigerators page (1400 kWh/yr. divided
by 12 months)
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15 kWh
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Ceiling fan (28 watts x 18 hours/day x
30.43 days)
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17 kWh
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Computer system (100 watts x 8 hours x
21 days)
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5 kWh
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Cooking (750-watt burner x 0.3 hours x
21 days)
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160 kWh
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Total
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[Note: In 2007 I finally replaced my ancient
refrigerator and now I use only about 94
kWh/mo.]
How are we actually
saving the electricity in our house and where is
this saved electricity stored when we are not using
it? Don't the electricity power
generators keep on generating electicity all
the day? --
Jagadish Hosamani, April 2005
Yes, the generators run 24/7, but when
you use more electricity, the generators have to
burn more fuel. When you switch off the lights,
the generators need less fuel. If you were
powering some lightbulbs with a stationary
bicycle, it would take you a lot more effort to
power five light bulbs than one. The generator
works the same way. Most electricity in the U.S.
is made by burning coal, which is extremely
polluting, so the less electricity you use, the
less coal is burned. That's why saving
electricity is such a powerful way to reduce
pollution (especially climate-change
gases).
You asked where the saved electricity is
"stored". The answer is that it's stored in the
coal or other fuels that didn't have to be
burned because you used less electricity than
normal.
(Special thanks to
Kurt Vey, a master electrician working at a
utility substation, who corrected an error in my
original answer.)
I want to generate all
my own power with solar and live "off the grid".
I'd like to connect with other people have done
this who might have expertise to share. Where do I
find them?
You'll find them at Off-Grid.net.
Though the question
does not apply exclusively to electricity, I am
wondering with all the technology available to
humans today why we are so slow to switch or
adapt to other ways of producing electricty or
heat. Surely with all the inventions in the
last century, are governments spending enough money
on research for alternative energy applications? Or
is there just too much money to be made from
regular methods. ie power plants hydro electric
dams etc.? --
Hugh, Feb. 2005
You're assuming that we have the
capability of discovering or inventing some
other cheap form of energy. Most observers think
this is unlikely. The research hasn't been
ignored, you just don't hear about it because it
hasn't been very productive.
In just a few years there will be an economic
meltdown as we reach the peak of global oil
production. Every year after that we'll produce
less oil than the year prior, which will have
devasting effects worldwide. There's more about
this at Life
After the Oil Crash and OilCrisis.com.
There are energy saving
devices in the market that promise up to 15%
savings on your electric bill. You simply plug it
into any wall outlet. Do such devices really work?
One such device is at: [dead
link]. --
Fernand, Pasay City, Philippines, Jan.
2005
There is no such thing as a
"plug-it-in-and-save" device. It's like
trying to lose weight without changing what you
eat or how much you exercise. Saving electricity
actually takes some effort; you actually have to
turn off stuff when you're not using it. You
can't just be lazy and plug in some device and
forget about it.
I also hoped it would be obvious that if
any such device really worked I would list it on
this site. Does it make sense to you that I
would create this mega website about saving
electricity but somehow decide not to mention a
device that saves energy by simply plugging it
into the wall?
About the specific device you were asking
about, what should jump out off the page at you
is that their website has zero technical
information about how their product supposedly
works. In fact, in their FAQ section they have
this:
Q: Is
there any prove to show us that this device
100 percent can help us reduce our electrical
bill?
A: Yes, we
have a test report carried out by
PSB(Singapore) which we will show to
u.
Hello? If they have such a report why isn't
it published on their website? And why are they
writing like they're some teenager on
MySpace?
Finally, does it not ring any bells at all
that they don't even have their own domain name?
This supposedly legitimate energy-saving company
is sponging an address off
1tuition.com.
I went ahead and wrote to them requesting a
unit to review and not surprisingly they refused
to send one. If a company that sells an alleged
electricity saver doesn't want the #1 site in
Google for "saving electricity" and "how to save
electricity" to review their product then
that alone ought to tell you something.
[Update: Their website is now down. They
didn't stay in business long -- not
surprisingly.]
Here's more about why power
factor devices don't save energy and why
surge supressor devices
don't save energy.
When the power goes out
could I get emergency power from my car by
connecting an inverter to the battery and running a
12-gauge extension cord to my house? It seems much
cheaper than spending $550 for a gas powered
generator, and my car always has at least 10
gallons of gas. Of course, I would leave the garage
door open so I would not die.
-- J. V. Will, Saint
George, UT, Dec. 2004
Your question isn't really about
saving electricity so you're kind of
pushing it, but let's look at this anyway
because it's interesting.
There are three basic ways to get emergency
electrical power when the electricity goes out.
Each of these devices has a regular outlet that
you can plug your electrical devices (or a power
strip) into. Here's how they compare:
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Gas-Powered
Generator
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Power Pack
(battery+inverter)
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Car Battery +
Inverter
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Cost
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$500+
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$320
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$40-$100, plus gasoline,
plus several thousand for the car
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Maximum Instantaneous Power
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5000+ watts
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1500 watts
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300 watts (cigarette lighter)
700 watts (direct to battery)
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Watt-Hours
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2000-15,000
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500
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7000*
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Maximum Run Time
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1-10 hours
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Depends on how much is plugged in.
A 100-watt computer system could run for 5
hours.
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10 hours*
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Downsides
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Highest cost, noisy (especially cheaper
models), storage for a big piece of
equpment, gas can't be stored for more
than a couple of months (according to
HowStuffWorks.com)
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Provides the least amount of total
power in watt-hours. Kind of pricey.
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Inefficient, provides the smallest
amount of instantaneous power. But is the
cheapest solution, and provides plenty of
power in watt-hours.
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* Assumes 10 gallons, and that car runs
for 1 hr. per gallon of gas, which is a
rough guess.
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I cringe at the thought of running a
car to generate household electricity because
it's so inefficient, but it definitely has the
cheapest entry cost (if you exclude the price of
the car) and most convenient method (if you
already have a car).
By the way, don't even think about
connecting the output from one of these to your
household wiring. You'd be in for a nasty
surprise when the electricity comes back on.
How much coal is
required to generate enough electricity for a day
in an average home?
-- Jonathan, Seward, NE,
Dec. 2004
Coal accounts for 52% of electricity
generated in the U.S., as it says on the
front page of our site. The average home
uses 920 kWh a month, as it says on the
What's a Kilowatt? page.
It takes 2.25 lbs. of coal
to make 1 kWh of electricity.
So one month's worth of electricity is
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2.25 lbs. coal
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920 kWh/mo.
x
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x
52%
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= 1076 lbs./mo.
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1 kWh
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That would be 35 lbs. a day, or 12,917 lbs. a
year.
The calculator listed on
the front page of this site will tell you
how much pollution (sulphur dioxide, volatile
organic compounds, etc.) is caused by your
electrical use.
Incidentally, the figures available from
Baywinds suggest that 0.03 therms of natural gas
contains the same amount of energy as one kWh of
electricity.
I live in a large co-op
complex where our electricity costs are included as
part of the rent. This means that those of us who
conserve don't get to pay any less, and those who
are wasteful don't pay any more. We are now
considering whether to move to electrical
submetering which would enable us to retain the
cheaper bulk rates we have now, yet have each
resident pay his/her own electric bill. Needless to
say this is very controversial. The pro-submetering
residents (including me) argue that by just
engaging in very basic conservation measures (like
not leaving lights/ac on all day when you are at
work), the average resident would pay the same or
less in monthly costs. The anti-submetering
contingent (who generally belong to the leave
lights/ac on all day while at work population) has
put forth several very emotional arguments, like
suggesting that the sizable number of senior
citizens in our complex would suffer the financial
burden most since they are home much of the day and
presumably use more electricity. My gut tells me
that's not so -- most seniors live alone, and don't
have/use electrical gadgets (computers, stereo
equipment, video games, hair dryers, etc. etc.) in
the same amount as younger residents/families
would. My feeling is also during the summer
although they might use the AC more hours since
they are home, seniors probably by and large don't
try and keep their apartments as cool as younger
people/people with families would because they
would probably feel too cold in those temperatures.
Any facts/suggestions you can come up with? I am
assigned to write a flyer about submetering in an
attempt to convince people it's a GOOD thing. Since
this is a cooperative, shareholders must vote on
whether we go with submetering or not. Thank you
for any help you can offer.
-- Julie Berman , NYC,
Nov. 2004
It's funny you mentioned co-ops -- I
lived in some housing co-ops and I just got back
from speaking at a national co-op conference. I
also have a website with helpful articles
about managing student housing co-ops. But
let's get to your electricity issue.
First of all, you're absolutely right -- when
the electricity is given away in an "all you can
eat" fashion then why would anyone save? Making
people pay for what they use is the only way
people will use less. And it's fairer, because
right now people like you are paying a higher
rate because others choose to be wasteful.
Incidentally, I've encouraged our local student
co-op student housing co-op to stop including
electricity as part of room rates for that very
reason.
But knowing that you're right doesn't solve
your problem. How can you convince the others
that this is a good idea? My feeling is that if
the arguments are based on emotion or if they're
just plain unreasonable then confronting them
with facts isn't going to help any. To prove
your point I think you're going to have to put
your money where your mouth is: If you're
certain that elders won't have to pay more under
the new plan, then suggest that elders' bills be
capped at whatever the current rate is. That way
you no longer have to prove that seniors
wouldn't have to pay more, because you've made
that an impossibility. How could they still
object after that?
Be sure to write back to let me know how the
vote goes.
I just wanted to let
you know your web site has a wealth of information,
thank you so much. Also, do you know if there is an
invention that can cut down the amount of
electricity you are using, for example: my TV, VCR,
DVD and stereo are plugged into a strip, which is
then plugged into the wall, is there anything that
the strip could plug into before it's plugged into
the wall to defer the amount of energy it's using?
I've looked around and found surge protectors but
it's not what I was looking for. --
Nikki, Oct.
2004
For electronics equipment, no.
Obviously if such a thing existed I would list
it on this site. Since the whole point of this
site is to share energy-saving info, if such a
device existed why would I keep it a secret?
In any event, these devices aren't nearly the
biggest energy hogs in your home. You'll save a
lot more energy by switching to compact
fluorescent light bulbs, and addressing your
heating and cooling
costs.
I note that in the US
you have a 110-120 volt system whereas ours in
Britain is 240 volts. Does this have any bearing on
how much power identical appliances use in the two
countries?
James de
Beresford,
Nov. 2002
Good question. Despite the difference
voltage, energy use is the same. You use more
volts, but you also use less amps, so it evens
out. For example, in the U.S. a device might use
120 volts x 2 amps = 240 watts. In Britain, that
same device would use 240 volts x 1 amp = 240
watts. So energy use is the same.
And of course, costs are the same, because
you're charged by the kilowatt-hour, not by
voltage. (Well, the costs won't be
exactly the same, because there's a
different price for electricity in
Britain....)
What about those
devices that are supposed to save energy by
increasing the "power factor" and reducing the need
for "reactive power".
I'll use BC
Hydro's explanation of this concept:
Power factor
is a measure of how effectively your
equipment converts electric current from
[the utility company] to useful power
output, such as heat, light or mechanical
motion. Low power factor costs you
money.
There are two kinds
of power:
- Usable power
called kilowatts (kW)
- Reactive power
called kilovar (kVar)
The ratio of your
usable power consumption to your reactive
power consumption determines your power
factor. Some electrical equipment, such as
motors and transformers, require both types
of power. Power factor gets smaller as
reactive power increases in comparison to
usable power.
There are a number of devices such as the
Power-Save
which increase the power factor or recycle the
reactive power and saves energy. What's more,
this makes your equipment run cooler and last
longer. How well does this all work? Probably
not very well for home users, because it doesn't
apply to all electrical use across the board,
only for things like motors, transformers, and
fluorescents that need reactive power. Plus,
many modern appliances are already engineered to
include some of this power-saving technology.
And even if you save money, there might be a
very long payback time. If any manufacturer
wants to send me a unit to test, I'll be happy
to do so, but in the meantime I'm skeptical that
such units make an appreciable difference for
residential use.
Now, power factor correction could benefit
commercial users who are running lots of
motorized equipment, though my guess is that any
compny that could really benefit from this
already knows about the technology and has it
installed
I was shocked to find
you could run 200 ceiling fans using the same
amount of power needed to run one electric clothes
dryer. Don't you think last years rolling blackouts
could have been avoided if only clothes dryer use
was cut in half? Most Californians live in desert,
which means their clothes would dry fast if nature
was give half a chance. Are any of the Home
Associations overturning their ridiculous
clothesline bans?
Do you know
California's current kWh cost? About how much would
it cost a family of 6 to use their clothes dryer
everyday for one hour in LA? Over $30 a month, no?
Considering the rolling blackouts cost California's
economy billions, the real number could be doubled.
Californians are unscrewing around, changing 100
watt light bulbs to 40. Saving 600 kWh if they
change 10. A family of 6 could save 45,000 kWh just
by cutting their clothes dryer use in half! Si or
No?
Is there any place else
I could visit to learn more about saving
electricity in California? Muchisimo Gracias,
Lance A. Boyle,
May 2002
Actually, you could run 200 to
800 ceiling fans with the electricity
required to run a clothes dryer. Ceiling fans
are just really efficient, and electric clothes
dryers are just huge energy hogs, simple as
that. If only more people knew, or cared...
I don't follow California homeowners codes or
the CA cost per kWh. But as a wild guess, if we
said Californians paid $0.15/kWh, then 5 kWh/day
x 30 days/mo. x $0.15 = $22.50, not far from
your figure. If you're in California, look on
your electric bill or call your utility
company.
There is no question that rolling blackouts
could have been avoided if Californians cut
their dryer use in half. Heck, it would only
take something like a 10% reduction in
electrical use across the country to shut down
half of the nuclear power plants.
Your comparison of savings for changing
lights vs. less clothes dryer use doesn't seem
to be accurate. First of all, switching from ten
100-watt bulbs to ten 40-watt bulbs saves 600
watt-hours, not 600
kilowatt-hours. Second, that savings is
for every hour the lights are on, though
you seem to assume that the lights will be on
for just one hour a day. Finally, cutting dryer
use in half doesn't save 45,000 kWh: an hour a
day for an electric clothes dryer is 5 kWh x 365
days/yr = 1825 kWH/yr. Cutting that use in half
would be 912 kWh/year. By comparison, saving 0.6
kWh from changing 10 light bulbs x 8 hours/day x
365 days/yr = 1752 kWh, far more than cutting
electric dryer use in half.
I don't know where else you can find info on
saving electricity. Surely the gazillion
suggestions on my website is enough to keep you
busy for several months?
U.S.
Voltage
your site constantly
claims US power is 120, or 240, this is not
correct. US power is 110, or 220 (commonly only
used for major appliances or industrial
applications. ... aside from working with an
electrician for several years, you made me have to
get on yahoo and do YOUR research for you.
[quotes a few non-reliable sources,
including a Geocities site (!) and something called
the "End Times Report"]
-- Joe Ruda,
February 2008
No, U.S. residential voltage is
truly 120/240. To prove this you can simply
stick a watt-hour meter into the wall and read
the voltage. I've done this with countless
outlets across the U.S. And if you prefer to
believe what you find on the Internet rather
than what your own eyes tell you, you could at
least pick better sources. For 120 & 240V
mentioned together, try Popular
Mechanics, Consumer
Reports, Good
Housekeeping, the city of Phoenix,
AZ, and Kenmore.
For 120V alone see PowerStream
and the University
of Georgia. For 240V alone there's the
California
Energy Commission.
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