Green Geek (2)About a year ago I first posted my concern about how much equipment I leave on standby in the house. Since then I have noticed that electricity bills have been a bit on the high side and I was suspicious about the UPS device. This 3kW unit is seriously over our requirements and I was wondering if it had a high overhead.
I have thought for many years that a useful device would be an ammeter reading up to 15A with a mains plug on one end and a socket on the other and had considered building such a device. It came as a pleasant surprise, recently, to discover that not only was such a device manufactured but Maplin had one on special offer—only £15 at the time.
So I put it to work.
Of the original list
- UPS 3kW rating
- Router (P90 PC w. no disk drive)
- Ethernet Switch
- NAS controller (NSLU2 slug)
- NAS drive (x2 in standby)
- Print controller (Pricom)
- Printer (in standby)
- Cordless phone charger
that is leaving out the Cable modem and Wireless Access Point which are not on the UPS, the total power usage is 80–85W, little more than a light bulb. I think the variation is whether the UPS is on trickle charge or resting. At current rates that will be costing us £15 per quarter. This is not a huge amount, but significant. Now I need to start testing other things.
Note: Useful rule of thumb at current prices (8.243p/kWh)—1W consumption =approx. 70p per year.
With my desktop running with its two screens and the NAS drive spinning the consumption goes up to 230W. Definitely an incentive to switch it off when not required. Here is a list which I will add to over the next few weeks.
Equipment on all the time
| UPS etc. (list above) | 80–85W |
| Wireless Access Point | 4W |
Equipment switched on as required
| PC in use | 65W |
| 19″ TFT screen in use | 40W |
| USB disk (difference from standby) | 5W |
| Halogen desk lamp | 20W |
| Laptop in use (charging) | 40W |
| Laptop in use (full) | 23W |
| Laptop off (full) | 1W |
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