In my quest to cut down on the energy bills, does leaving the television hub on standby overnight use much electricity, or is it better to switch off completely?
The hub as I call it, consists of the usual VCR and Sky box and TV.
Any saving’s to be made here?
I’d turn it off if you don’t lose settings.
My TV takes up 1W on standby. That’s just the TV. I guess 12 hours on standby each day would give (1x 60 x 60 x 12 x 365) = 15,768,000W in a year, which is equivalent of having a 2KW (2000W) kettle on for a little over 2 hours
as @NDer says it will use electricity and therefore yes there is a saving to be made. The only thing to be aware of is Sky do make updates overnight so if you turn the box off you might get a delay every now and again when you turn it back on as it makes the updates. It can also apparently affect on-demand programmes but I’m not sure how true that is.
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I’ve got a set up which I have a switched multi socket so switch off the TV and sound bar as they would remain in standby. The rest actually have on/off buttons anyway, the internet is on 24/7.
I don’t quite understand your numbers, which look extremely high. I think seconds got in way somewhere, but you somehow came to something like the right answer.
Here we go:
8,760 hours in a year (365 x 24). At a continuous 1 watt load that’s 8,760 Wh (watt hours), i.e. 8.760 kWh (kilowatt hours). You’ve assumed half the time on standby so call it 4.4kWh. Average kettle is 3kW so we’re looking at the kettle running for 1 1/2 hours.
That said the age of the television or other items is a factor. Legislation requires post 2013 televisions to consume no more than 0.5 W in standby mode.
JS
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well, smart meters are supposed to help with this! When all the lights are off and the fridge is not running our smart meter will show a usage rate of 0 pence per hour. I can then look around the living room which will be festooned with little led standby lights, including the tv, the wifi hub, laptop charging lights, and more. So they all stay on as power consumption is so minuscule if its reading zero on the meter.
This may also demonstrate why smart meters are such a rubbish idea, as I might be more tempted to turn stuff off completely it it showed some sort of power drain.
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The calculation isn’t right, it should be 1 * 24 * 365 = 8760w or 8.76KW. All modern TVs will use half this, so about 4.4kw or about 80p a year, 0.017 pence an hour.
That does look like rather poor metering and misses the point. I have a consumption meter (not a smart meter) provided by my then supplier several years ago. I’ve no idea how accurate it is, but about the lowest steady reading I see is 100 - 125watts. That has to be the televisions, sat box, recorder etc, alarm system, timer switches, smart plug for computer system, the electricity consumption meter itself and so on. It’s always amused me that the first advertisements for Smart meters claimed they ‘saved’ electricity. They do no such thing of course unless households act on the information they provide. After a while the pitch moved to stating they could help consumers to save electricity, which is exactly the case.
JS
Yes I might have, but here goes:
1W means 1 watt per second. (okay, technically a joule per second, but you get the gist)
So, 1W (standby) x 60 (seconds in a minute) x 60 (mins in a hour) x 12 (hours) x 365 (days in a year) = 15,768,000 W
^^^ (I did it for 12 hours a day on standby, over the year)
An elec kettle takes about 2,000 W
So, (15768000/ 2000) = 7884 secs
7884/60 = 131 mins
131 minis = 2.2 hours?
I’ve got a first in Maths but I’m not proud, so happy to be shown to be wrong!!
Of course, if standby is 0.5W, then the final result will be half in value, as the ‘1’ in the first calculation above will be replaced by an ‘0.5’
No, sorry. If you’re playing top trumps with First in maths, fine, but but Chartered Engineer, Electricity industry professional here. The units must be correct.
1watt is 1 watt. It’s the flow rate, 1J/s as you say. A bit like 60 miles/hr is instantaneous. It is not 1 watt for a second. That’s a watt-second, which is what we’re talking about here with use of power over time.
Common to find confusion between instantaneous power flow and energy.
Your 15,768,00 is correct, as a number, but it is watt-seconds, not watts. It was such a big number I blinked when I saw it.
Apart from the fact your kettle is 2/3 of the power of mine, your calculations are correct.
I just used hours, not seconds and that was much easier.
Yes, you got to more or less the right answer, by a very tortuous route and via some confusion.
JS
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Appliance ratings are watts used per hour, so an appliance rated at 1w will use 24wh in a day.
If it used 15.768,000w over a year that would cost about £2680 a year to run at 17p a unit of electicity.
Er, no, watts are the instantaneous power use. Energy (electricity) used is a combination of power (eg watts) and time (eg hours). A 1 watt item will use 24Wh/day if it’s operating continuously.
As you’ll see from your electricity bill, electricity is priced at c14p per kilowatt hour (kWh).
JS
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That’s what I said, watt hours.
I wish my electricity was still 14p a unit.
Well NDer got the 4kWh right somehow, although I didn’t follow the workings.
If you want to be pedantic it’s kWh. To say you have used 8.76kW or 4.4kW is meaningless.
I’m not a real electrician. That’s near the limit of my knowledge on the subject!
1W is probably high now for TVs. I think the current limit for TV’s being sold is 0.5W.
TV on standby permanently here as is the Virgin box wotsits and the hub.
We save well in other ways so it does not bother us.
There are so many ways to make leaving a TV on standby, or not, pretty irrelevant really.
Since we retired ( despite having much more disposable income than when working) we just got into better common sense habits eg, if you are doing a casserole , do 2.
Making tea? Measure 3 cups worth into kettle for safety but don’t fill it.
Gas fired radiators are all lined at the back and every bulb in the house are low watt jobs.
I use a 3 tier steamer for meals, when not using slow cookers.
Lots more…but it all adds up.
Our dual fuel bills have been dropping for 5 years…mind you we don’t get the same winters.
Just now its £68.00 per month for the two of us in a 4 apartment.
That includes powering an additional 5 drawer garage spec freezer. Bulk buys…more savings.
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I’m no smart meter fan, and from recent experience neither are those that fit them.
But I have looked at ours a couple of times now and thought the current elec use looks a bit higher than normal and then discovered something switched on we had missed. The classic example being the light in the garage, which is still a proper old fashioned 100w bulb, so does register!
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Ok, whilst on the subject of power use, a couple of weeks ago we needed a new kettle. My wife was wanting a 3kw one as she was insistent that it would cost less to use than a 4kw one. I reconed they would be about the same because the 4kw one would be on for less time to boil the same amount of water.
That’s Man Maths.
Behave.
Well I do have a mug with a caption on it that reads ‘I am not arguing, just explaining why I am right’
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Continuing the discussion from Leaving the tele on standby overnight:
I don’t think there is such a thing as a 4kw kettle. As the max fuse rating is 13A a 3kw kettle uses 12A when on (3000 watts). If a 4Kw kettle existed in the UK then that would be 16A and blow the fuse immediately. Any higher load than 3000 watts and plugs and wiring would start getting hot.