Have you ever wondered what your electrical appliances cost you when they are on standby? More than you might think. I recently purchased an energy meter. My house base-load with standby appliances only was a total of 250 watts. Not too bad, but still had me interested to see where it was going. I turned off all items one at a time, and got it down to 100 watts base load. I was going mad. I even turned circuits at the switchboard one at a time. There was one left - a power circuit. I checked my power points, and was pulling my hair out. (Not that I have much left). To make sure I was not getting a false reading, I turned off the circuit breaker, and sure enough the load went to zero. After thinking I was going crazy, I eventually remembered my microwave that is sitting inside a cupboard. I opened the cupboard, and sure enough it was on that circuit. I turned off the microwave at the powerpoint and power usage dropped to zero. OK... So now I know what it was. What was it costing me? Lets do the math. 0.1kwatt ... running 24 hours a day = 2.4kwh per day. Over a year, thats 876kwh. Looking at a recently published rate from my energy supplier, that works out to be around $235.11 per year. Its an old microwave, and probably has a fault - but lets face it ... $235.11 per year for a flashing clock is probably a little expensive. Time for a new microwave oven. Now before you ask... I am not doing this to save the earth. I am not convinced one way or the other about the whole climate change debate. For those of you that know me, I am a gadget dude that likes playing with toys, and this caught my eye. The power meter I got was from efergy/ ... It has already paid for its purchase price shortly after purchase, so definitely worth a look!
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 12:58:27 +0000
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