Appliance Power Consumption and "Vampire Loads"

I bought a "kill a watt" to measure power consumption of my appliances.

They're available for a wide range of prices on the internet. I got a new one for $17, about the lowest price, plus shipping.

I'm not very happy with the design of the kill a watt. For one thing, it wants to be flush against the wall, which is a pain if you have two things plugged into adjacent sockets in the wall or power strip. So I also bought a 1' extension for $2 that gives some flexibility. For another thing, it gives readouts of both "Watts" and "Power Factor" with the same button, and the readout of units is so tiny it's hard to read. It took some googling to figure out that "Power Factor" (given as "VA", which normally means "Watts") is not relevant.

I was mostly interested in measuring "vampire loads", power consumed by appliances turned off or in low power modes but still plugged in. The "kill a watt" does not measure fractions of a watt, if the power used by an appliance is very low, it gets a zero or a one. It seemed to me that it was certainly technically possible to make appliances with tiny vampire loads, but it was not clear that consumers were checking for this quality while buying, hence manufacturers might not bother doing a good job in this department.

Computer: Compaq Presario PC SR5130nx tower, bought at Circuit City for about $400 in August 2007. 1G RAM, single 64 bit Athlon cpu. I don't recall if it had an "Energy Star" rating.
- completely off: 3W
- running Windows Vista, doing nothing with 2 windows open: 57W
- running Windows Vista, "sleep" mode: 5W
- running Windows Vista, with a program running an infinite loop: 90W
- running Ubuntu Linux, doing nothing with 10 windows open: 46W
- running Ubuntu Linux, with a program running an infinite loop: 69W
- running Ubuntu Linux, "suspend" mode: 4W
- running Ubuntu Linux, "hibernate" mode: 3W

The computer results surprised me. I really can't explain why Vista running an infinite loop takes 30% more power than Linux running an infinite loop, it's really very strange. Note the Linux "hibernate" mode is a real pain to use, and doesn't work very well. The "suspend" mode works OK.
I think it's disgraceful the computer takes 3W while turned completely off.

Computer Monitor: Samsung 24" LCD SyncMaster 245bw Color Monitor, with an Energy Star Rating, bought for about $400 from Circuit City in September 2008. Resolution: 1920x1200.
- on while computer is displaying: 71W
- on while computer is in "sleep" or "suspend" mode: 0W

(Note that since the "kill a watt" doesn't show fractions of a watt, it sometimes reads 0 for small amounts). Clearly they did a good job with the monitor in sleep mode, but I was surprised an LCD display used so much power.

TV: Toshiba 19" 19A24 CRT (meaning not flat screen) bought for about $200 in 2004. Don't recall if it was an Energy Star.
- off: 1W
- on: 41W

DVR: Motorola, not owned by me, provided by RCN cable company.
- off, not recording: 40W
- recording, but TV display off: 40W
- not recording, TV display on: 41W
- recording, TV display on: 40W

DVD player: DAEWOO DV6T534N. Don't recall if it was an Energy Star.
- off: 3W
- on, not playing: 16W
- on, playing: 18W

Microwave: DAEWOO KOR630A, the smallest one they had in the store
- off: 1W
- on high: 1250W

It would have been very interesting to check out the refrigerator, but it was too much effort to move it away from the wall to get access to its power supply. Similarly, the air conditioner does not run on 110V and therefore cannot be measured using the kill a watt. A typical fridge runs about 500W. A typical air conditioner uses about 1000W.

My opinion is that if the manufacturer makes it a priority, they can reduce "vampire loads" of electronic appliances to an absolutely tiny amount, as they were able to do for my monitor. Note that my monitor was the only appliance that I'm sure was rated as an "Energy Star". I would hope that low vampire loads would be a requirement for getting that rating, in which case it would be unnecessary to run around unplugging one's appliances when not in use.

Unless you have a device that has a clock or timer that needs to be powered all the time, it's a good idea to plug all your gadgets into a power strip and turning the power strip OFF, cutting power and thus no power consumption, when you are not using the gadgets.

For the old CRT TVs, there will be delay after the power is on before the TV images come on (remember the TV sets more than 30 years ago?) This is due to CRT TVs require the picture tubes to be warmed up before images can be displayed and modern TVs always keep the picture tubes warmed up even when power is turned off.

Unfortunately, air conditioners, consuming to much current and having the compression motors, cannot be used with a power strip

People keep saying that, but I figure unless energy gets a *lot* more expensive, I can't see anyone but energy conservation fanatics switching everything they're not using off, with or without power strips. Half the point of having appliances on a remote is so you don't have to walk across the room to turn them on. Powering down a computer means booting it every time you want to check your email. When I'm home, I check my email several times a day. Your DVR has to be powered on if it's going to be able to auto record shows.

There is no reason why an appliance, even one with power controlled by remote, or one with a clock, can't consume less than a watt of power. All it takes is the will to do it.

Having everybody put all their appliances on power strips is just not going to happen. Instead, we should be talking about how to get pressure on the appliance makers to produce appliances with lower vampire loads.

One approach is direct regulation, and have the government require certain types of appliances meet certain goals in terms of power consumption, like the government sets standards for mileage of cars (the fact that such standards are currently ridiculously low notwithstanding).

Another approach, which I think would be less invasive and easier to have yield better results, would be to require package labeling which showed power consumption, including vampire loads. It would be especially good if the labeling including the cost per year of the power due to the vampire loads.