Power Cost Meters - How & Why

Over the past few years experts have warned that we are using a lot more energy than we should be. This overuse of energy is causing serious problems for the environment and it is thought that if it continues, we could potentially wipe out part of our planet.
Of course there are sceptics who say that such experts are overreacting and that there are no real threats to the environment. Whatever your views on the subject, it is not hard to see that some damage has been done as time has gone on. For that reason it is vital that we start to make changes to lower our power consumption.

The Problems with Appliance and Electrical Standby
One way in which people use up more electricity than they have to, is by leaving their switches on standby. It might make sense to put your television onto standby if you are just going out quickly to the shops, but you may not realise just how much electricity the standby setting can use.
A DVD player for example can use up to 85% energy when it is placed on standby. That is a lot of power consumption for something that is not even being used! The same applies to equipment such as electric toothbrushes and electric shavers. If they have been fully charged then you should unplug them or else they will continue to use energy even though they do not need it.
Keeping one appliance on standby may not cause too much damage, but the trouble comes when you have several devices on standby mode. This is because standby mode usually takes up roughly 15 watts of energy. So if you have a number of different appliances on standby then you could be using the equivalent of 60 watts.
These days most homes are placed onto standby. Stereos, DVD players, laptops and PCs, game consoles and electric toothbrushes are all there ready and waiting to be used. When you realize just how much energy each one is using, you will soon start to turn each appliance off until you really do need to use it.
Due to people leaving their stereos on standby all of the time, it costs £290 million for just one year. They produce up to 1.6 tonnes of CO2 which is an awful lot to say they are not being used! Overall the total amount of CO2 being released into the environment from the UK alone is just over 3 million tonnes. That is just the UK. America generates a lot more than that and so as you can see, it really is a big problem that needs addressing.
Overall you may not realize just how much energy you are wasting by keeping your appliances on standby. So now that you do know why not take a quick look around and switch off any devices that you are not using. Not only will it reduce your homes power consumption, but it will also save you money too!