Talk:Standby power

Merge from phantom load
Article merged: See old talk-page here

Standby power & standby mode
Not like many people check this article, but I think Standby power and Standby mode although two seperate things are also slightly redundant, or could easily become redundant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dphrag (talk • contribs)
 * Try the Template:Merge then.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:34, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I've never done much wiki editing, sort of fun.  Added the template.  dphrag 16:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Because Standby Power uses up to 5% of total residential electricity use in the U.S. and can be easily reduced in many cases by unplugging an unused appliance or switching it off at a power strip, I would love to see it stay separate (and be expanded), if only to raise awareness about this issue.Sustainableyes 18:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed with last point. In addition Sleep Mode is different mode that more subtly pertains to the behavior or requirements of the device regarding the power consumption as opposed to the power consumption itself. rijksband 0:23, 28 December 2006 (GMT +2)

Neutrality
"As global warming becomes more of a factor, reducing power consumption gets more and more important and eliminating standby power is a urgent measure to adopt a hard line to save the environment. Standby power is often wasted energy that evaporates without people recognizing. If a majority senses the importance of that "hidden" energy consumption, this could be a first step to face global warming"

Sorry, but doesn't sound very neutral.


 * -- I agree, whilst elimination or management of standby power could reduce CO2 emissions, I don't think it's a "urgent measure to adopt a hard line," or a "first step to face global warming." dphrag 19:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The way to do this is to avoid discussion of controversial points like global warming except as explicit quoted in the press. I expect this to be fairly easy, as I've seen a lot of discussion of the idea of "vampire power" popping up in recent news. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like this problem has been taken care of. Can we remove the dispute tag?Ccrrccrr (talk) 01:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Removed tag. Muffinon (talk) 00:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Why the anti-standby bias?
I just noticed how much power my laptop saves by being put on standby. I'd assumed it wouldn't be much, but apparently the consumption drops from about 25 Watts to less than three! If I want to walk away from it for a few minutes, the keystroke it takes to put it to sleep and the one it takes to wake it up again are certainly worthwhile. D021317c 21:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * So how many people are there using laptops in your city, do you think? Each of those thousands of people using three watts for possibly hours at a time?176.26.38.86 (talk) 20:04, 25 November 2013 (UTC)Lance Tyrell

I think this bias is regarding standby vs unplugging your equipment, and not what you described. Assimilateur (talk) 04:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: Merge pages into standby power
Discussion closed. Merging Phantom load and most of sleep mode into Standby power. Zodon (talk) 18:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The Standby power, Sleep mode, and Phantom load pages cover very similar material.

The Phantom load and Standby power entries seem to be two pages about the same thing. Since Standby power page is a bit further developed than phantom load, I think the phantom load page material should be incorporated into standby power, and that page made to redirect to standby power.

Though sleep mode has a separate meaning for computers, most of the material now on the page at the moment seems to refer more to standby power in general, rather than sleep mode specifically. Suggest that the material there that is germane to the broader topic should also be moved into standby power.

Zodon (talk) 09:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they should be merged. The sleep mode article could in theory be a separate topic, but the article there now is a jumble of disconnected ideas, so a merge is a good idea.Ccrrccrr (talk) 01:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Support merger per above arguments.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Completing the phantom merge
The stuff under the heading "Phantom Load" really needs to be merged into the corresponding sections of the rest of the article. Ccrrccrr (talk) 12:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, don't hesitate to go ahead and work on it. Zodon (talk) 19:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Phantom Power consumed in US as percentage of US consumption; comparison to Greece, Vietnam, and Peru
The section Standby_power quotes a 2004 article stating that total phantom load caused by the United States alone could power Vietnam, Peru, and Greece. (ref). I don't think this reference is good enough to use in an encyclopedia citation. It is not a scholoarly or primary source, or one in other publications for good information in the field. It says it gets its figures from a "well-designed study" reported in another magazine (home power), but does not give information sufficient to find the source of its own information. The information it gives does not square with information available from other sources, and it does not even give a data attached to the data, so we could use it to say "in a certain year this was the case".

I propose removing the bad reference and the portion of the article built around it.

Here are some things wrong with the reference:
 * It doesn't say when the study was done
 * It doesn't say where the estimates of per-household phantom load wattage comes from. How many devices, on average, per household?  How many watts, on average, per phantom device?  How many kwh of phantom load power are used per day in the US?  Was the study based on self-reported usage in fewer than 100 households in a small region (as in This paper and this other paper)?
 * It doesn't say where the estimates for other facts, like number of households in the US, come from
 * It doesn't say where it gets its figures for power consumption in Greece, Peru, and Vietnam.

The article states that the average US household uses 1.45 kwh of phantom load electricity per day, or 43 billion kwh of phantom load electricity per year, but doesn't say how much power the other countries use. According to the |2000 US census data, there were 105,480,101 US households in 2000. At 365 days/year, that gives us 56 billion kwh/year, much higher than the figure the article gives -- perhaps the article was using a lower figure for number of households?

According to 2004/2005 estimates, power consumption in the other countries is:

So the 3 countries mentioned use twice as much power as this estimated US phantom load. The numbers don't add up.

Also interesting is the fact that the figure given (43 billion kwh/year) is only about 1% of US power consumption (3816 billion Kwh/year in 2004), which is at odds with the statements in the following paragraph of the wikipedia article giving estimates of standby power consumption in affluent nations from 5% to 13%.

Can anybody find better-quality references that estimates US phantom-energy usage in one or more years?

--SV Resolution(Talk) 16:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the paraqraph and its two references, one of which is unaccessible anyway (as of 2008-09-19).

For any single appliance the load is never very large (the most inefficient designs draw 15-20 watts ), however when factored over all of the appliances in a country like the U.S. the load can come to billions of watts. Some studies have suggested that the total phantom load caused by the United States alone would provide enough power to handle the electric needs of Vietnam, Peru, and Greece.

--SV Resolution(Talk) 16:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * LBL lists estimate of US residential standby power usage for 2000 as 45 Terawatt hours, which is in same ballpark as the 43-56 terrawatt hours calculated above.
 * Note that the 3816 terrawatt-h/year from the fact book is total electrical energy usage, whereas the percentages mentioned in the article (5%, etc.) are out of residential usage. So there is no obvious contradiction there.  (At least if residential electric use is about 1/5 of total US electric use.)
 * I don't know what percent of industrial, commercial, agricultural, etc. usage is in standby power. Although considering all the computers, switches, control systems, electronics, etc. involved, (and after listening to talks by Amory Lovins), I would imagine there is significant standby power use in these settings as well.
 * I did look at that reference once, thought at the time that the numbers checked out okay, but it was a while back, so I don't remember the details/how deeply I checked.
 * Since energy usage increases exponentially in many places, comparing with usage in different years may introduce significant errors. (e.g. use in Greece, etc. may have changed significantly between 2000 and 2004.)  But I don't object to the removal.
 * The sustainable.ca reference is accessible on the internet archive, but don't see much interesting there. Zodon (talk) 06:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Terminology/History
I am moving the section on history of terminology here, because it appears to be WP:OR. The reference seems to be just to the article in Home power magazine, which is claimed to be the first use of the term. Have not been able to verify what the article says, but even if it does claim to be the first use of "Phantom Load," it seems unlikely to be a reliable source for historical/etymological purposes.


 * ==Usage History==
 * Phantom Load
 * The earliest known use of the term Phantom load was in "It's Gotta Be Spring" by Brian Green (N6HWY) on page 25 of Home Power magazine #11, the June/July 1989 issue.

The following was in the section as a comment.


 * It would be great to add usage history for the alternate terms, as well. What is now the most commonly-used term?
 * Standby power
 * First used in ....


 * Vampire power
 * First used in ...


 * Leaking electricity
 * First used in

It seems more likely to generate input on the talk page, where it is more likely to be seen. Zodon (talk) 19:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As to the more commonly-used term. Google Trends shows more searches for "phantom power" than "standby power" (the others don't have enough data to rate).  However, since both terms have other uses (phantom power is also something to do with microphones, standby power can refer to generators), this may not be significant.

And of course this is all WP:OR. Zodon (talk) 19:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Google gave 649,000 hits for "phantom power" -microphone.
 * and 1,020,000 hits for "standby power" (but as noted above, this includes other uses of the term.)


 * Additional - just realized I was using "phantom power" not "phantom load" (term mentioned above). Of the terms listed above, standby power is the only one that has enough searches to show up in google trends.
 * google 16,600 hist for "phantom load"


 * This might also be relevant to tracking word history:  WordSpy Phantom load
 * Zodon (talk) 20:17, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Good Point. I like a good etymology. I hope we can get some good ones into the article. --SV Resolution(Talk) 16:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "Phantom power" is a well-defined technical term that has been used since the 1920s or earlier. Pol098 (talk) 16:01, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Article Unbalanced
So, i can see where the "consequences" section came from, but shouldn't there be a note about why manufacturers use this technique? We have the cons, but where are the pros? dunerat (talk) 05:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Pol098 (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I oppose the merge
Stand-by and phantom power are totally unrelated things, the merge makes little sense. The article now makes no difference between the two. What a sorry mess... --88.148.205.72 (talk) 14:03, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Phantom power is a different article, haven't seen any proposal for a merge. Zodon (talk) 08:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Phantom power, standby power (or vampire energy), and sleep mode are ALL Completely different. All three of these are different, and it seems that there may be some problems with the terminology already in Wikipedia. Phantom power is power sent to peripherals to power them (like a microphone, USB HDD, etc.). Standby power is power consumed while a computer or device is on Standby or sleep mode (and still ON); the sleep mode article is wrong/incomplete as DVD players, game consoles, etc. all have standby modes that consume power. Vampire energy (which is different from standby power), is energy consumed while a device is completely OFF; e.g. power used by power adapters and other devices that consume small amounts of electricity in order to power on faster.


 * To recap: Phantom power is power sent to peripherals; standby power is power consumed while devices are in sleep or standby mode; vampire energy is consumed while a device is OFF and is typically used to power on faster or protect from surges.Dantiston (talk) 06:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed the proposed merge templates with sleep mode. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Measurement of low (especially standby) power with cheap meters
Actual standby power of up to a few watts measured with a Kill-A-Watt type meter shows as zero or very low.

This is original research (though anyone can do it very easily, surely it's been published?). All the following is about measurements with relatively inexpensive equipment (whether for workshop or home use), and does not apply to laboratory milliwattmeters. In the article it's stated and referenced that measuring low ac power is difficult (the difficulty is in measuring low current, not mains voltage). I also added a respectable reference saying that better than measuring standby power directly is to put the standby device in parallel with a steady load, such as an incandescent lamp (an incandescent lamp is a clean resistive load, I wouldn't recommend a non-resistive load with non-unity power factor, non-sinusoidal waveform, and switching effects).

I have just carried out such an experiment with a computer and monitor which, in sleep mode, show a joint power consumption of a steady 0.0W (with no fluctuating digit) when both connected to a meter (a Prodigit 2000M, the 230V version of the Kill-A-Watt, same manufacturer). The LCD monitor is about 5 years old; the motherboard design maybe two years old; the power supply is an 80%-efficient 450W unit.

When the sleeping computer, monitor, and a small incandescent lamp were all connected, displayed power (rms, not VA) fluctuated between 29.0 and 29.3W; the fluctuation is probably meter noise, not actual variation. Disconnecting the monitor, the indicated power dropped to 28.1-28.3W. Disconnecting the computer, it dropped to around 27.4W (fluctuating). The conclusion is that both the monitor and the computer actually consumed roughly 1W each, with fairly large uncertainty due to meter noise. Although the sensitivity of the meter is 0.1W, a power consumption of nearly 2W shows as an unfluctuating zero. I had previously used a similar Brennenstuhl meter which was significantly worse, and another meter which also showed 0.0W for the sleeping computer and monitor: this is a general low power measurement problem with this sort of meter. While it may or may not be possible in principle to measure very low power levels more accurately without seriously expensive circuitry, these meters are not designed or advertised for the purpose, but to monitor normal power consumption, and usually energy consumption over time, which they do well enough.

I'm not at all sure of the significance of actual numerical measurements even with the additional resistive load, due to waveform and power factor effects of these meters of unknown characteristics, and would need to measure with laboratory equipment, which I don't have at the moment, to say more. So don't rely too much on my actual figures, just that low power levels show spuriously as zero.

I haven't experimented to determine the relationship between indicated and actual power at low levels (easy enough for those with experience of safely working with lethal voltages using several 1/2W 560K resistors rated at 350V or over in parallel, each dissipating about 0.1W at 230V), but obviously measurements below several watts are going to be badly wrong. I'd expect a threshold region where power shows as zero or a far too low value, beyond which readings gradually become reasonably accurate. In my case nominal mains voltage was 230Vac, actual voltage 246V. As the difficulty is in measuring current, results with 110V mains, drawing twice the current for the same power, may not be quite as bad.

For higher, but still low, standby power, the meter reads low. A DVD/VCR in parallel with a steady load of 27.2W (a 30W incandescent lamp) read 36.5W, i.e., 9.3W for the DVD/VDR; the DVD/VCR alone read 6.0W, probably about 3W lower than the real figure.

Conclusions: measurement with simple meters of low standby power are wild underestimates and, in particular, a reading of zero does not mean that a few watts are not being consumed; differential measurements with an additional drain of a steady, say, 30W, give results which seem more meaningful (but not checked numerically with laboratory-class equipment). This is not a general inaccuracy but a systematic lack of sensitivity at low current levels, characteristic of most ac power measurement.

All this is trivially easy to do, if you think you disagree I encourage you to repeat what I did.

Computer standby power
While this note is about low power measurement, actual standby power levels for reasonably modern computer equipment may be of interest. The monitor power (differentially measured with a 30W lamp in parallel with the equipment) increased by roughly (fluctuating readings) 0.6W from unplugged to plugged in but switched off, and by another 0.3W to switched on, but in power-saving mode with no signal. The computer power of a bit less than 1W above is for sleep mode; when the computer was powered off but with Wake on LAN enabled the power seemed to be the same as when unplugged (i.e., apparently less than 0.1W). Where I am 1 watt-year costs roughly 1 pound sterling.

Pol098 (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC) Wording edited slightly 30 Oct.

Fire Risk
Is the fire risk section really relevant without some figures to either back it up or disregard the notion? It seems to me it could equally apply to any electrical device whether on standby or not — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.21.9.100 (talk) 11:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

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Question?
Some chargers spark when you plug them in. I suppose this might indicate the charging of a capacitor in the charger? Might this mean that turning power strips off or unplugging chargers when not in use, then re-connecting when needed, might cause you to consume more power than if you just leave the adapter or charger in a standby or &#8220;no-load&#8221; condition? Bwrs (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2018 (UTC)