Energy cost of devices on standby in my home [Updated inc oct price cap]

[basharg]

I saw the excellent post by /@sleeplesswhite-the-jackal and wanted to build on this further, this now includes the October price cap rate of 34p/kwh and I've added some more data to this from around the home.

I have converted this to a Google Sheet which can be customised with your own electricity kwh pricing and your own devices if you want to add to this. To do this just make a copy then you can edit the Electricity Price tab with your current electricity kwh pricing to see the difference this will make to you.

The table below shows cost on Octopus Go tariff (15p/kwh) vs the October 1st price cap tariff (34p/kwh).

Device
Consumption (W)
Annual cost (£)
Oct Cap Annual Cost (£)
Kitchen
Washing Machine Statesman XD0806W
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Whirlpool washing machine (c.2005) – off
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Washing machine – on but not running
1.1
£1.45
£3.28

Dishwasher Bosch SMV46MX00G/51
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Zanussi dishwasher c.30 years old
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Dishwasher left on but not running
0.9
£1.18
£2.68

MeacoFan 1056
0.7
£0.85
£1.94

Meaco 25L Ultra Low Energy Dehumidifier
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

LG American Fridge Freezer GSJ761PZXV
47.8
£62.85
£142.46

Microwave oven Matsui brand (~25 yrs old)
6.1
£8.02
£18.17

Sage Oracle Coffee Machine
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

KitchenAid Mixer
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Eufy Robot Vacuum RoboVac 11
0.6
£0.79
£1.79

Smart Meter
0.7
£0.92
£2.08
Living Room
Virgin Media Hub3
12.1
£15.90
£36.04

Virgin V6 TV Box
5.8
£7.62
£17.27

Sky Q STB – standby
11.0
£14.45
£32.76

Sky Q STB – recording while in standby
13.8
£18.13
£41.10

Sky Q Mini box
9.1
£11.96
£27.10

Sky Q broadband router
7.2
£9.46
£21.44

LG home theatre c.2010
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Denon AVR-X4400H AV Receiver
9.1
£11.96
£27.10

PS5
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Xbox Series X
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

LG C1 OLED TV (2021)
0.2
£0.26
£0.60

LG C8 OLED TV (2018)
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

LG 39in TV (2014 model)
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Govee WiFi LED TV Backlights
3.5
£4.60
£10.42

Logitech Harmony Hub
1.7
£2.23
£5.06

Nvidia Shield Pro 2019
1.8
£2.37
£5.36

Amazon FireTV stick (2nd gen)
1.5
£1.97
£4.47

Panasonic House Phone
3.2
£4.20
£9.53
Smart Devices
Google Home
2.3
£3.02
£6.85

Google Nest Audio
1.9
£2.43
£5.51

Google Nest Mini
1.7
£2.17
£4.91

Google Nest Hub
2.1
£2.76
£6.25

Amazon Echo (2nd Gen)
1.9
£2.50
£5.66

Bluetooth BLE USB Receiver
0.5
£0.66
£1.49

Nanoleaf Shapes 18 Panel
5.9
£7.69
£17.42

Nanoleaf Canvas 17 Panel
6.6
£8.67
£19.66

Hue Lightstrip Plus
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Hue Hub
1.7
£2.23
£5.06

Hive Hub
1.9
£2.50
£5.66

Ikea Hub
1.2
£1.58
£3.57

Peloton Bike+
0.1
£0.13
£0.30
Cameras
Hikvision Camera 4K (PoE)
4.5
£5.91
£13.40

Hikvision Camera 2K (PoE)
3.4
£4.47
£10.13

Canary Security Camera
3.7
£4.86
£11.02

Neos Security Camera
2.0
£2.63
£5.96
Office
Router Protectli Vault FW6B
8.3
£10.91
£24.72

Switch ICX 6450-48P Switch (No POE Devices)
55.5
£72.93
£165.30

Switch Netgear GS308v3
1.5
£1.97
£4.47

Switch Netgear GS308P
6.9
£9.07
£20.55

Netgear 5 port gigabit switch
1.4
£1.84
£4.17

Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC LR Wifi (PoE)
4.6
£6.04
£13.70

BT Openreach Modem Huawei MT992 G.Fast
4.0
£5.26
£11.91

HP Microserver Gen8 (1265L - 16GB - 4xHDD)
78.0
£102.49
£232.32

Mac Mini M1
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Desktop PC
1.2
£1.58
£3.57

Qnix 27” monitor
0.5
£0.66
£1.49

Brother colour laser printer
1.6
£2.10
£4.77

HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 Printer
6.6
£8.67
£19.66

AmazonBasics Shredder
0.5
£0.66
£1.49

Motorola phone charger (2020)
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Apple phone charger
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Dell laptop charger (recent model)
0.1
£0.13
£0.30

Apple laptop charger (knockoff)
0.3
£0.39
£0.89
Bedroom
Bedside alarm clock/radio
0.8
£1.05
£2.38

Ambi Pur plug-in air freshener
2.1
£2.76
£6.25

Sheet available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y-vsASqGJ7PEU6b1Tq5eZs6d0s64ORsRnN9wxaBPNF8/edit?usp=sharing

You can find the original post here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/wkxng0

Original Conclusions:

Contrary to belief, leaving a phone charger plugged in will not end up killing penguins in Antarctica. Most modern switch-mode power supplies draw a negligible amount of power when not doing anything. Not listed here are the other power supply adapters I tested which gave mostly similar results apart from the knockoff Apple charger. The only adapters that do tend to draw a few watts are ones that contain a transformer, you can usually tell these as they are significantly heavier than others.

It's worth checking your older appliances, for me the microwave was an eye-opener, I'm paying £16 (soon ~£27) a year just to have the thing display "00:00" at me all the time. It's now switched off at the wall when not in use.

Sky TV is expensive as it is, but is made even more expensive by the high power consumption of their set-top boxes. I suspected the Q mini box was bad because of how warm it got while in standby, but I didn't expect over 9 watts when it's sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Both boxes are in 'eco' mode.

I'm considering having my broadband router and ethernet switch on a timer. A timer costs around £7 and would pay for itself in just over a month if it switched them off for 8 hours a day. I may also do this with the sky boxes.
N.B. Turning off your broadband router is not recommended as this may cause lower speed negotiation if frequent outages are seen on the line.

Plug-in air fresheners should be banned. Not because of the (admittedly fairly low) power consumption, just because they stink. I do throw them away but they mysteriously keep reappearing.

Nanoleaf's are really inefficient when on standby - they use about half the power of when they are running, the transformer is warm to the touch so they will definitely be turned off at the plug since they are off 90% of the time.

 

[lauraralph]

@basharg Really useful and interesting.

Felt it was a bit harsh to call the fridge freezer on standby though as it is really working.

 

[basharg]

@lauraralph You're right I did short change the fridge freezer a bit, there were a few things I included that aren't really in standby like the router/switches as they are always on.

Hopefully the numbers might be helpful to some and in time they'll forgive me

 

[monad_wisdom]

@basharg But you know your fridge/freezer periodically 'turns on' with the thermostat and cools the interior which will bump up the wattage. For a device like this it's better to take a 24hr reading and take an average.

Also, my dishwasher uses more standby energy when the door is closed. Strange but true

 

[cmarie212]

@basharg

I'm considering having my broadband router and ethernet switch on a timer.

My understanding from networking forums is that powering down the router for any period of time is a bad idea as the exchange will read that as a problem and start limiting your speed to "fix" the problem.

Anyone able to confirm this?

 

[lemons2lemonade]

@cmarie212 Yes, if you have FTTC or G.fast, your street cabinet will interpret it as a fault and dump the speed to increase stability. You'll need to request a profile reset manually to resolve it, and it can be a pain.

 

[valda]

@cmarie212 Can confirm. The cab will see this a drop in service because there’s too much speed going down the line. So it’ll throttle the speeds to improve the consistency.

You’d need something called an SNR reset to fix the issue.

 

[christian_vassal]

@cmarie212 Yeah, don't do this OP.

Once, before going away for 2 weeks, I switched my router off and it couldn't connect when I switched it back on. It turns out they reused that line because when the guy doing new installs checked, it showed up as not in use at the exchange.

It wasn't fun having no internet for a week while I got through the "sir, I'm going to help you reset the router, sir" rounds with customer service, waited for them to send a new router - which made no difference, lol - and finally got an appointment with an engineer looking for line faults for an hour, when he goes: wait, you don't even have a line installed.

 

[rufus]

@cmarie212 Is this true for fibre?

 

[yeshuas_my_freedom]

@cmarie212 I don't recommend it still, but if you power it off cleanly, using its power button or menu option (not all have one of these or either of these). Then it's supposed to send a signal saying I've been turned off, vs just turning the power off on the socket which it would see as a dirty disconnection and possibly affect your speed. That's all theory though, I'm not sure how many devices comply with the expected standard.

I'm also unsure of what happens if you have gfast or fttp and turn off the router but leave the modem on. In theory the modem could hold the connection but some isps use the router to send the credentials/vlan tagging to the modem so I'm not sure if it would drop without them.

 

[lamarcook]

@basharg The most interesting thing here is your living room has 3 TVs in it.

 

[blakenoco]

@lamarcook Threeview

 

[rdenn14]

@basharg Most interesting part of this to me is how power hungry anything that puts out a wireless network is. So stuff like Sky boxes or Sonos speakers that are secretly access points in the background cost a surprising amount to run.

 

[mprimrosewbu]

@rdenn14 The hue hub is fairly reasonable although different type of network!

 

[daiphucka]

@rdenn14 I run network cables to stuff if I can, it's more efficient, more reliable, and more secure.

 

[emilynghiem]

@rdenn14 My BT home hubs are about 10 Watts each and I have 3 of them, still nothing compared to my American Fridge freezer that uses 1/3 of all our electricity.

 

[jordanw123]

@basharg I'm just amazed at how much stuff you have plugged in!

 

[basharg]

@jordanw123 It's not all mine I promise

 

[haneul2]

@basharg just watch the internet router, if you power it off regularly they might see it as fault on the line and cut internet speeds.

also, thank you for taking the time to post this, fascinating stuff!

 

[basharg]

@haneul2 Thanks - that's a good point and I have updated the post with a note on that now.