Another irresponsible thread about energy saving - save £2000 a year by turning things off

[cakeorwine]

In the Express but also in other papers from last April.

An 'energy' expert claimed

"The prospect of huge home energy bills this winter means Britons are desperately casting around for ways to reduce how much gas and electricity they use. Experts have revealed the easiest way you can shave hundreds off your energy bills is by making sure your appliances are switched off.

According to Natalia, the following items are “the worst offenders” costing you the most money. When these appliances are combined, turning them off of standby can help save £2,102.41"

Your TV is one of the most energy-hungry devices in the house when left on standby.
If you don’t want it idling in standby mode, you will have to make the effort to get up and turn the set off at the wall. But doing so will be worth it for the money you save.

Natalie said: “Leaving the TV plugged in and switched on uses 1.3kWh.

“As the average cost of electricity is now £0.34 per unit, just leaving the TV on idle for an hour a day adds up to an enormous £161.33 a year to your bill.

Gaming consoles are likely to be left plugged in and on as the TV, but it consumes a significant 15kWh per hour when it is on standby. Natalia said: “Simply making sure it is totally off can save £5.10 per day.

The expert noted: “Leaving an average kettle plugged in and switched on when not in use uses around 0.3kWh. Although this is seemingly a small unit of energy, it still adds £37.23 to your annual bill
.........................................................................................................................................

If she had used any intelligence, she would have realised that if you actually watch TV , then you would spend a fortune on just watching TV

If my gaming console was using 15 KWH on standby, then I would worry about it

This woman is no expert and newspapers are being irresponsible in publishing this stuff.

I read that- and the fridge/ freezer was listed!! What's the point turning that off?!
Bonkers
Although I do remember reading that stuff on standby might as well be on power wise.

Fuck me - if a console uses 15kwh idle - can it fire a rocket into space when it’s in use? 😂

actually all this energy stuff is brilliant. It’s shining a light on the financially illiterate, maths illiterate and those who pay bills without question.

How can a kettle be both switched on and not in use?

They should be fired for these things.
It's ridiculous.
This is why we have people thinking candles are cheaper than light bulbs.

For anyone who is unsure, there is a thread in cost of living topic about how much things cost to run.

And for those even more unsure 1.3w is NOT 1.3kwh🙈 I hope the reporter will give the mentioned thread a read

You're right - these numbers make no sense. How can a games console be costing £5 per day? That's £150 per month!

I'm also baffled at how a kettle that is not boiling water is drawing any electricity.

A quick google shows that a modern TV uses 1.3 W when on standby, not 1.3 kW! That means on standby, it needs to be on for over 700 hours to use ONE unit (1 kWh)

It's interesting to see the impact of older appliances

When we moved into our house, we inherited a dishwasher that seemed to be better than our existing one. It broke down last month, so we decided to replace it.

I'm convinced the one we inherited must have been 10+ years old - since swapping to a newer model, our smart meter shows that month on month, our electricity usage dropped by about £15 compared to the previous month. We hadn't changed any other habits - if anything as it gets darker, we're putting more lights on. The only thing I can realistically think is that by switching to a better, more energy efficient model, that accounted for the savings.

Obviously we've had to shell out the price of the new dishwasher, so we won't see any actual 'return on investment' for at least a few years, but it was definitely enlightening to see the impact of using old appliances

A gaming console on standby is about 5 watts - so in an hour, that is 0.005 KWH.

It would use 15 KWH if it was left on standby for 3000 hours.

There is so much of this around at the moment. Doesn't anyone even think when reprinting these articles?

We are really rubbish at switching stuff off at the plug. TV, games consoles, computer, even the kettle all on standby when not in use. Our electricity bill is less than £2000 a year, so how would we save that much by turning them off?!

It's owned by Schrodinger?

Sounds like Natalia's getting her KW and W mixed up. If she's the best 'expert' they can come up with, no wonder we're in such a mess.

I just checked nintendo switch and according to their site it uses 0.3W on standby mode in dock. Even playing two hours a day it says it uses 6KwH per year!

This.

It's why people turn lightbulbs off, stay in the dark and put themselves at risk with falls down stairs.

Or use candles.

And just think how much people would use if they actually use them!!

How can a games console be costing £5 per day? That's £150 per month!

Well...I suppose a gaming computer might use quite a lot if it's been hacked and someone is mining bitcoin on it.

It really is inexcusable. On the energy group I'm in on FB, some people are doing bonkers things fuelled by reports like this. Spending £100 to save 50p a year, etc.

Lol, Totally missing the point of the thread but this just reminded me of the attached meme.

@cakeorwine

An Xbox One X uses about 15W in always on standby mode. There are other deeper standby modes where it uses about 5W and 2W.

The author probably just mixed up W for kW.

Maybe the TV values are for an enormous CRT TV. Something like a state of the ark 36" projection TV might be a kW. And the Express is known for the "older demographic" readership.

I got excited for about 0.5 seconds when I read the title of this thread 😆

The kettle error is quite ludicrous. But then, so are all the others!

The author probably just mixed up W for kW.

'Just' being out by a factor of a thousand really isn't on for a supposed expert writing in a national 'news' source.

Perhaps daily express readers could save energy by not reading it. Think of all the money wasted on running its servers for the online edition let alone print.

It's probably irrelevant anyway because I doubt whether the readership actually own a single games console.

According to a web calculator I found on a TV review site, if electricity costs 35p/kwh and I have my TV on for 5 hours a day, it will cost me £62.50 a year to run.

Another energy thread?

This explains why my mum keeps turning her kettle off at the wall...