lemon garden

I bought a power meter recently. It’s an excellent device. You plug it into the mains power supply, then plug an electrical device into the meter and it shows you the power consumption of that device.

Using this meter, I’ve discovered that a single wash at 40°C in my washing machine uses 0.59KwH of electricity. My electricity supplier charges me £0.1526 per Kilowatt Hour (KwH). So that wash cost me £0.09.

I’ve also discovered that many electrical devices are shockingly inefficient. It’s astonishing how much power is drawn by many devices when they are ostensibly turned off. For example, my computer monitor (a 17 inch CRT monitor) draws about 67 watts when turned on and displaying an image. When the monitor is turned on, but receiving no signal, it draws 4 watts of electricity. However, when turned off, it still draws about 3.5 watts!

I reckon that I use my computer, on average, for about an hour a day. The rest of the time the monitor is turned off. So I’m spending about £4.47 a year for my computer monitor to do absolutely nothing. No wonder I never have any money. No wonder we have global warming.

Turning the power off at the mains socket stops this shameful waste of power.

For reference, I have also discovered that:

• My computer speakers draw 3 watts when turned “off”
• My Mac Mini draws 1 watt when turned “off”
• My Epson C62 printer draws zero watts when turned off (yay!)
• My washing machine draws 0.5 watts when turned “off”
• My kitchen radio/cd player draws 1 watt when turned “off”
• My DVD player draws 1 watt when turned “off”
• My TV draws zero watts when turned off (yay!) but 4 watts when on standby (boo!)
• My Xbox draws 6 watts when turned “off” (what is it doing?)

That’s everything I’ve tested so far. Scary, isn’t it?