Why we should turn off our electrical appliances

Richard Wray
The Guardian,
Thursday August 14 2008

British households are wasting the annual output of a large power station by failing to switch off their flatscreen televisions, set-top boxes, and internet networks when they are not being used, according to Ofcom's latest Communications Market report.
The equivalent output of the 1,500MW Didcot B power station in Oxfordshire could be saved each year if every home with a set-top box switched it off at night; that would conserve enough electricity to make 80bn cups of tea.
Consumer electronics account for about a third of home energy use, according to the Energy Saving Trust, but that use is forecast to balloon to 45% by 2020 as more people buy more gadgets.
The rise in average residential energy bills to just over £1,000 a year has made people more energy aware, but only when it comes to buying obviously power-hungry devices such as fridges and freezers, according to Ofcom.
Almost three quarters of Britons, when quizzed by the regulator, classed themselves as caring about the environment, and more than half said they had compared the green credentials of white goods before making a purchase. But only 39% of people think about the environmental impact of a new TV, DVD player or computer.
When they get it home, meanwhile, most people leave their new kit switched on all the time, unnecessarily wasting electricity.
Three quarters of people rarely switch off their set-top box, according to Ofcom, and that figure jumps to 83% for owners of a wireless home network. Plasma screens are particularly power hungry, according to the regulator, with the average set using three times the power of a normal TV when in use, and twice the power when left on standby.
The average satellite set-top box gobbles up four and a half times the power of a flatscreen LCD television in the same state. Even a Freeview box uses twice the power of a flatscreen TV when left on standby.
Almost half the country's mobile phone users, meanwhile, waste electricity by charging their handsets overnight, when in fact most models only need to be plugged in for about two hours. People aged between 16 to 24 are particularly guilty of this, with 80% doing it at least some of the time.