Another BS Study About Energy Use In Standby Mode
Posted by: Dave M. in General News, Opinion/Editorial, tags: energy, gadget, hdtv, standby
I was watching GeekBrief.tv this morning and Cali told us that a new study claims that PlayStation 3’s and HDTV’s take up more energy than a refrigerator over the course of a year. There was an article that she linked to that I am linking to as well:
Power bills soaring? Turn off the Playstation: study | Technology | Reuters
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Don’t blame the fridge for your steep power bills — an Australian consumer agency study has found that videogame consoles and plasma flat-screen TVs are major electricity guzzlers, even when left on stand-by.
This article is utter BullShit! (Sorry for the language, but it’s how I feel) I wrote about this once before, so I’ll let you read that article in response to this: Absurd ad I saw on television.
I just felt that this needed to be said again. Don’t let these BS studies make you start turning off your electronics all the way. There is no need. Electronics in standby mode use very little energy and will cause more grief than good in the long run.
Think of it like turning your alarm clock off every morning after you wake up. When you get ready for bed that night, you will have to reset the clock and the alarm just to save a few watts.
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Well you have an interesting argument, however most electrical items consume power in standby and if you have TV, Video/DVD, Satellite/Cable, Console combo, then it’s like leaving a light bulb on over night.
There’s some info on this site:
http://www.bettergeneration.co.uk/ideas-for-saving-energy/leaving-electrical-appliances-on-standby.html which says that you can save about £65 a year if you switch off your appliances overnight.
You obviously have to size it up with the fact that if your appliance breaks down as a result of your switching it off (though I doubt that is likely) you have to buy a new one and obviously it takes a fair amount of electricity to produce the item too.
I’m not sure where you get a light bulb from just a TV, Video/DVD, Satellite/Cable, and Console game, but it comes close with all the items listed in the web page you pointed to.
Plus I would have to question some of those numbers too. The “ON” numbers actually. My HDTV uses way more than 100watts when it’s on. I would guess that those figures are probably a few years old. The standby values looked pretty good though.
Still, I’m not going to turn off items that keep track of time just so I can save the energy used by a single light bulb. The alternative is having to set the time every time you turn on the unit again. Not to mention that you wouldn’t be able to record shows that come on overnight or when you are at work.
Plus, my problem was not with how much energy is used in standby mode, but with the ad that claimed that the items used up more energy when they were in standby mode than when they are on. If my TV is on for 1 hour a day, it would take over 80 hours of standby power to match that one hour. So the ad is completely full of it.