At first I thought that unplugging appliances was the easiest sustainability project. But then I thought about what is entailed in all that unplugging: understanding electricity and how it relates to an electric bill, deciding what and how to unplug, deciding what needs to stay plugged in and deciding how much technology to utilize. The simple job of reducing plug loads can get very complicated.
Remember, buying stuff from a utility is the same as buying stuff in a store.
When you turn on the faucet, you are buying water by the gallon.
When you turn up the heat, you are buying gas or electric or oil by the cf, watt or gal…
When you plug something into an outlet, you are buying electricity by the kilowatt hour.
What’s a watt?
Watts are a power measure that rates energy flows just like gallons per minute measures water flow. Electric bills usually state usage in kilowatts or kWh. A kWh is 1,000 watts. A kWh is the amount of energy you need to run something. It is a consumerism measure.
For example, if you want to water the garden, you turn on the spigot and gallons of water flow out of the hose. When you get your water bill the cost is based on total gallons. If you want to charge your cell phone, you plug it in and watts of energy flow out of the outlet. When you get your electric bill the total watts are billed in kWh.
kWh is calculated by multiplying watts times hours. For example, a 60-watt incandescent lightbulb consumes electricity at a rate of 60 watts/hour. If it burns for 2 hours the kWh would be: 60watts x 2 hours = 120 watts/hour or .120 kWh. The electric bill would be calculated as: .120 kWh x rate. In my case that would be .120 kWh x $0.14 = $0.0168 or $0.02 for the two hours of light.
Keep an eye on those watts.
It’s easy to see water – there it is flowing out of the faucet. But electricity? How do you see the flow of electricity? A Kill-A-Watt meter is a little device that lets you ‘see’ the flow of electricity at the point of use – the outlet. The meter measures volts, amps, watts, or herz as it is consumed letting you ‘see’ the actual flow. It also measures total kWh over time helping you be a better consumer.
Let’s use my home office to see a Kill-A-Watt in action. The plug load in this area is too dense to make unplugging everything practical so we have installed a power strip
that can be turned off with a single switch. The load includes: an internet cable box, a wireless router, a laser printer, an energy star printer, an energy star Mac and an LED desk lamp.
Here I have the Kill-A-Watt plugged in. Starting with the cable modem I kept adding elements to see the increase in watts. As you can see, the modem consumes 12 watts. The other appliances consume a range of power based on the load they are they are under.
- The total Kill-A-Watt readings ranged as follows: with the wireless router from 13-18, the Mac from 77-83, the printer from 79-89, the light from 102-111 and the laser printer from 111-125 watts.
Increasing loads in my home office
Clients often tell me that they leave the modem and the wireless router on all the time because they might stop working but that they either turn off or put the ancillary equipment into sleep mode. First, they won’t stop working and second, leaving them on costs money. I calculated a worst case cost of $10.25 per annum for no reason. That may not seem like a lot until you look around the house at similar devices and start multiplying. Most notable is the equipment associated with the television(s).
The television is a great example of a phantom or vampire load. When a television is turned off it isn’t all the way off it is in a state of suspended animation waiting to instantly come on when you press the power button. Keeping the TV in instant on mode draws power and wastes money. Unplug it or switch a power strip off to erase the phantom load.
How to Unplug
- Go around and unplug stuff that draws power all the time. That includes anything with an LED read out; cell phone chargers, computers, printers, television sets, and their ancillary equipment
- Sometimes a power strip is better than unplugging because even though turning stuff off is important, unplugging everything is not always practical. Power strips that can either be switched off, or turn off on their own are the answer.
- The Belkin Conserve Smart AV™ 8-Outlet Auto-Off Surge Protector we discussed in an earlier post is one way to manage this load. When the computer is turned off, everything else goes off too. It costs about $30. Your payback would depend on your electric bill
- Less technologically advanced surge protecting, switchable, power strips can be had for $4. This would give the above home office example a payback of about half a year.
- Sometimes a power strip that senses electricity draw is the best solution. This is especially important at a centralized cell phone or computer charging station. These power strips ‘evaluate’ when the batteries are fully charged and then switch off. These vary in price and sophistication.
- Remember you might not want to unplug some things such as the portable phone or the answering machine. In those cases, be sure you are using Energy Star equipment.
This may all seem inconvenient but think how liberating it is that you can ‘see’ your electricity flow, understand it, manage it and save money all by pulling the plug.
