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Hooray for Efficiency!
Mar. 1st, 2008 11:49 amSo I'm sick again. Strangely when I'm sick I have a hard time sleeping -- unless I'm like super-sick -- and so I always end up productive with stuff that I've been wanting to do but not getting done. Today is Electricity Consumption Day!
We all have stuff that we leave plugged in all the time. That bothers me because it's eating power which costs money and in most of the world directly translates into coal emissions and CO2. So anyway, I have a little energy meter and I ran around checking what everything is consuming.
I was pleased to see the rate for the Roomba, because I was getting worried about it being plugged in 24/7 just to clean up cat fur and dust. But that's totally worth it. The real excitement came when I checked out the laptop I am using as a Media PC. I had tested it already, and was disappointed because it was reading 65W when on standby and 69W when running! But I think that the laptop was charging its battery at the time, so that's not a valid reading. Today it's showing just 6W when on standby! The reason this is cool is I've got my Harmony remote properly talking to the Media PC remote transceiver and even going in and out of standby by remote control and all that. Awesome! I was worried that I couldn't have that wonderful behaviour because of the high power usage, but looks like it's OK. Woo!
We all have stuff that we leave plugged in all the time. That bothers me because it's eating power which costs money and in most of the world directly translates into coal emissions and CO2. So anyway, I have a little energy meter and I ran around checking what everything is consuming.
| Item | Watts Consumed | Annual Cost |
| Desktop PC (off) | 10 | $8.65 |
| 19" LCD (off) | 2 | $1.73 |
| DSL Modem & Wireless Router (on) | 17 | $14.71 |
| Cordless Phone | 3 | $2.60 |
| Roomba (on standby) | 5 | $4.33 |
| Phone + Digital Answering Machine (on) | 7 | $6.06 |
| Clock Radio | 2 | $1.73 |
| Home Theatre (TV, Amp, CD, DVD; all off) | 9 | $7.79 |
| Old Dell laptop I'm using as a media centre PC (standby) | 6 | $5.19 |
| Total | 61 | $52.79 |
| Total (with desktop on a power bar) | 49 | $42.41 |
I was pleased to see the rate for the Roomba, because I was getting worried about it being plugged in 24/7 just to clean up cat fur and dust. But that's totally worth it. The real excitement came when I checked out the laptop I am using as a Media PC. I had tested it already, and was disappointed because it was reading 65W when on standby and 69W when running! But I think that the laptop was charging its battery at the time, so that's not a valid reading. Today it's showing just 6W when on standby! The reason this is cool is I've got my Harmony remote properly talking to the Media PC remote transceiver and even going in and out of standby by remote control and all that. Awesome! I was worried that I couldn't have that wonderful behaviour because of the high power usage, but looks like it's OK. Woo!
