Stripping Down Power Usage with a Smart Strip
Unfortunately, the power button on many electronics and appliances has become a bit of an impressionistic affair in the last few decades. Turning the television off, for example, may blacken the screen, but out of sight, hidden inside, the television’s circuitry is still consuming electricity. This tendency is by no means limited to televisions. For many of the electronics which populate our homes, “off” no longer means off but instead shades of electrified gray. This quiet appetite for electricity has acquired many catchy names, like standby power, phantom load, vampire power, or idle current. Whatever the moniker, the facts are simple: 5-10% of household electrical consumption is going to feed devices which to the user appear inactive or off. Usually the power draw is small – 2 to 5 watts for a DVD player, for example – but is more dramatic in other instances. TV top cable boxes, satellite receivers, and DVRs are some of the worst offenders, gobbling up a remarkable 30-60 watts while technically being off. At any given moment, the average home is losing about 50 watts to these “vampires.” Globally, phantom load already accounts for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the problem is getting worse. The good news is that we can do a lot to minimize the amount of standby power being consumed in our homes.
The first measure we can take is simple but not always the most convenient – unplugging electrically powered devices when they’re not in use. Not everything with a power cord attached to it is a potential thief, though. Common items that draw standby power or “leak” electricity include: battery chargers, laptop power supplies, TVs, monitors, appliances, media players, and just about anything that comes with an AC/DC power supply (if you’d like to read more about what items to look for, this link might prove helpful). Unplugging the offenders, however, is not always easy or practical. Using a power strip with a master on/off switch is a simple, fast, and cheap method of achieving the same effect without all of the work. With the ability to plug in 6-10 devices into a single power strip, cutting electricity to an entire entertainment center then becomes as simple as flicking a switch. Again, though, there are situations where even this approach might be impractical or difficult to implement. Enter the “smart strip.”
A “smart” power strip intelligently controls the electricity consumption of items plugged into it so as to minimize standby power loss. If a single “master” device is powered down (my computer, for example), the smart strip automatically disables the flow of current to all other devices sharing that power strip. With three external hard drives (each powered by an always-on AC/DC power supply), a printer, desktop computer, and LCD monitor all sharing the same stretch of real estate, my desk was the focus of a lot of standby power consumption. Even though I was already using a “dumb” power strip to electrify this ensemble, accessing the strip buried behind my desk in order to trip the switch was a big stretch (literally). Because so many of our electrical sockets are tucked behind pieces of furniture, physical access can be one of the biggest hindrances to any mitigation effort. In my situation, the smart strip has allowed me to conserve energy without having to manually unplug everything or practice my best yoga moves just to reach them.
Smart strips won’t work well for every scenario, but if you think a certain area of your residence would benefit from such a device, go ahead and pick one up (or two). They’ll ultimately pay themselves off through reduced electrical bills. More than anything, though, the smart strip provides a certain peace of mind in knowing that our conservation measures are not being undone by a few gadgets with a secretive thirst for electricity.
Marc Swanson
www.goinggreentoday.com
Going Green Today is a service unlike any other on the internet. We provide a personally tailored roadmap for living a greener, healthier lifestyle that will shrink your carbon footprint and save money. From keeping your household safe from toxic chemicals concealed in everyday goods, to getting the most out of your water heater, let our expertise be your guide toward saving up to $2,000 and 30,000 lbs in annual C02 emissions. Curious? Get an idea of what you could save while Going Green through our green lifestyle assessment http://www.goinggreentoday.com/free-report-intro
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