The power consumption of computers varies significantly due to two key factors.
Computer energy consumption in standby.
To save energy turn off your computer when it is not being used or enable power saving features such as hibernate standby or sleep mode.
To test the standby mode power consumption of my computer i got a p3 international kill a watt meter for about 21 online to use as a pc power consumption monitor.
Power consumption is listed in watts w.
Working from home saves energy and time by cutting out the commute but it may increase your home energy bills unless you use energy saving office equipment.
The kill a watt power meter plugs into the wall and then the appliance plugs into the meter.
The more energy efficient an appliance is the less electricity it will use on standby.
Many countries adopting the one watt initiative now require new devices to use no more than 1 w starting in 2010 and 0 5 w in 2013.
Running the a v components in standby for a month would cost just 3 15 since many of the components reverted to a reported zero power consumption in standby mode.
Use sleep mode and power management features on your computer to save money on your energy bill.
We measured the standby power of many many products.
Sleep mode typically uses only 1 5 watts of power and can be set to turn on automatically after a set time of inactivity.
The energy saving modes may be referred to as hibernate or standby.
Power saving modes will allow you to turn on a computer quickly when you need to use it.
Just because these screen saver comes on does not mean that the computer automatically uses less electricity.
Many people work from home at least one day per week.
The energy efficiency star ratings system is intended to indicate electricity usage running costs but it also helps provides a useful guide to standby costs.
Kompulsa has an energy usage calculator that you can use to calculate the energy usage of a computer and the monthly power cost.
The table below summarizes those measurements with the average minimum and maximum power levels observed while in standby.
Some appliances use no energy when turned off.
It can also calculate fuel requirements for a trip and your mpg.
Computers have different so called energy saving modes which you can use to set the operating system.
Product mode average w.
It s worth noting that newer appliances use less energy than older ones but we use more technology than ever so households are still wasting money by not switching off an electrical.
Standby power used by older devices can be as high as 10 15 w per device while a modern hd lcd television may use less than 1 w in standby mode.
Select hibernate because it uses less electricity.
The count refers to the number of products that we measured.
It has a has an lcd screen to tell you how much electricity was consumed in that time period.