Vampire power: How to Save $6 Billion a year at no cost

Shattering the Myth: Achieving Kyoto Targets will cost us Part II

Ironically during Earth Day week, the federal Conservative Minister of the Environment testified before the Senate Environmental Committee that meeting the Kyoto carbon emissions targets would “manufacture a recession.” Headlines following his testimony read, “Baird accused of scare tactics on Kyoto.”

This is the second post in a multi-part series, highlighting hard business cases will dispel this as pure myth.

Vampire Power
Electrical devices that are plugged in 24 hours a day are using between two and 20 watts – even when the device is fully charged or off. This is called “vampire power,” “phantom power” or “standby power.” When your TV is "off" – the power supply is still drawing power so that when you flick the on button on your remote it instantly turns on.

With the proliferation of digital devices there are four billions of power supplies sold world wide every year.

Standby power accounts for 10 per cent of US residential electricity consumption, or more than US$6 billion annually. In 2004, “vampire power” consumed almost 130 million MWh – equal to the output of 36 power plants. And here’s the kicker: manufacturers could build power supplies for electronic devices that draw as little as 0.25 watts — at no additional cost, or at most 25 cents per unit.

In 1999 residential phantom power consumed more electricity in California than all refrigerators in homes in the state! (see image with blog or download full PowerPoint slide under attachments below).

So California imposed regulations on standby consumption for a number of devices. Devices sold in California as of January 2006, could consume no more than three watts in standby mode; this fell to 0.75 watts in 2007 and will drop to 0.5 watts in January 2008.

Applying this standard in all OECD nations would reduce CO2 emissions by the same amount as removing 18 million cars from roads -- at no cost!!

Potential savings in the US? $US6 billion a year – by drastically reducing vampire power which is entirely wasted! And at what cost? Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. In other words, $6 billion of savings a year for FREE.

So when a politician tells you that meeting the Kyoto targets will cost us too much, tell them to read this blog.

Source: www.energy.ca.gov/commission/commissioners/rosenfe... slide #27

For Shattering the Myth: Achieving Kyoto Targets will cost us Part I go to http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/1384

Stay tuned for part III: Hybridizing Taxi Fleets: How to save $50 Billion in North America over a decade for FREE.