Statistics – what you can save
Obviously it all depends on what you are spending on electricity at the moment and your current appliances and habits. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that the average household wastes 10% of the total electricity bill by leaving appliances in standby.
The problem is not an easy one to solve – some systems actually can’t be turned off other than by unplugging (set-top boxes, DVD players, some TVs etc.), many we forget are on at all (hi-fi’s left on but not playing music) and some things are not practical to unplug (mobile phones left to charge overnight).
Enviroplug® addresses these problems with practical solutions.
Enviroplug® Charge Shield
A typical mobile phone charger uses 2 watts when charging a phone, 2 watts when the phone is charged but still connected to the charger, and 1½ watts when the charger is plugged in and turned on, but not attached to a phone. If a phone user charges their phone overnight, it will be charged in an hour or so and then left unnecessarily connected for a further 7 hours. In this case, using Enviroplug® Charge Shield will save 90% of the energy otherwise used.
Other devices have different characteristics. Charging a PDA with an Enviroplug® will save about 82%, an AA rechargeable battery charger about 81% and a laptop computer 80%.
All chargers left plugged in and turned on unnecessarily will waste power. When they’re not connected to anything they still use electricity – you can tell because they get hot. Some chargers get really hot –laptop chargers particularly so. Our experiments showed power use between 1 and 2 watts. The very latest super-efficient phone chargers use 0.5 watt.
Enviroplug® Charge Shield energy usage once it has turned off power to a charger is negligible – less than 0.1 watt.
So using Enviroplug® Charge Shield saves at least 80% of the energy otherwise used each day.
Enviroplug® TV Shield
Power usage of a standard home entertainment system consisting of 32” LCD TV, DVD player, surround sound speakers, VHS recorder and games console, all in standby mode is about 28.5 watts. Enviroplug® TV Shield uses 0.7 watt, saving over 97% of the energy otherwise wasted and paying for itself in less than a year.
Enviroplug® Audio Shield
A typical mini stereo system may use 23 watts of power when playing music, which reduces to 20 watts when not playing but still on (ie. not in standby mode). Enviroplug® Audio Shield uses 0.7 watt, giving a 96% saving.