Electricity is Leaking from Your Home!
by Jennifer Thorne and Margaret Suozzo

Home electronics and small household DC appliances - TVs, VCRs, telephone answering machines, cordless phones, electric-powered portable tools, etc. - draw energy even when the power is ostensibly off - thanks to a phenomenon known as "leaking electricity."

Business Week reports that the average US household is constantly leaking 50 watts of power - nearly 450 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per household at a cost of about $40 per year. Assuming a rate of 8.4 cents per kwh, it is estimated that leaking electricity costs US consumers more than $3 billion annually.

Power leaks from TVs and cable boxes cost the average homeowner approximately $15 per year. TVs alone cost Americans more than $650 million annually in leaking electricity. Watching a TV 4 hours a day consumes 153 kWh a year: 43 kWh of that power drains away when the set is ostensibly turned off.

Most current TVs require 4 to 10 watts - even when "off" - to support instant-on and remote control features. If you use a remote to turn on your TV, you are wasting invisible watts. (Some newer TVs use only 4 watts in standby mode and several manufacturers have built sets that require as little as 0.5 watts in standby power.)

The average cable box leaks 12 watts. With nearly 45 percent of US homes equipped with cableboxes, homeowners will spend an estimated $300 million yearly on lost electricity.

Digital satellite systems (DSS) consume an average of 15 watts when not in use. Twenty-five percent of US households are expected to have DSS receivers by 2002, adding $214 million to electricity bills annually for leaking electricity.

New TV set-top devices for Internet access leak 6 watts each when not in use. Compact stereos consume from 1.8 to 28.6 watts in standby mode. Ninety-two percent of the energy used by compact stereos drains away when the units are turned off. Assuming that people listen to their stereos one hour each day, this lost electricity costs music-lovers $410 million annually.

Americans spend more than $390 million annually on electricity leaking from VCRs. The average VCR requires 5 watts of constant 24-hour-a-day standby power to maintain remote control features, channel memory and LED clock displays. (Newer VCRs carrying the EPA's Energy Star label consume no more than 4 watts and some experts believe that the leakage could be cut to less than 1 watt.)

By simply switching to Energy Star TVs and VCRs, Americans could save more than $560 million per year in electric bills. Cutting leakage on TVs and VCRs to 1 watt could save US consumers more than $860 million a year and reduce CO2 emissions by more than 2 million metric tons annually.

A European Union study found that Europe's loss from leaking electricity was equal to the output of two large power stations. If present trends continue, the demand will quadruple over the next 13 years. According to Alan Meier of California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supplying the extra energy demanded by the world's power-leaking appliances adds 18 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere every year.

Plugging the Leaks
It is now possible for the US to cut its CO2 emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels while saving money and creating 800,000 new jobs by 2010, according to "Energy Innovations," a joint study by the American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and a coalition of other US environmental groups.

ACEEE's "Innovation Path" strategy calls for a "transition away from fossil fuels toward a cleaner, more economical and more secure future" based on energy-efficiency, solar power, fuel cells, heat pumps, advanced wind turbines, bioenergy conversion and improved industrial processes.

US CO2 emissions are "now nearly 9 percent above their level in 1990 and growing rapidly," says ACEEE Executive Director Howard Geller. "It is clear that the US will not meet its commitment to return emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000. The US Climate Change Action Plan must be greatly strengthened in order to reverse course."

Under the current US climate action plan, CO2 emissions will continue to rise at least 21 percent by 2010. However, using ACEEE's "Innovation Path" strategy, energy consumption could be cut by 15 percent in 2010 and up to 42 percent in 2030. By 2030, CO2 emissions would stabilize at 46 percent below 1990 levels. By 2010, the estimated net savings to US consumers would be $58 billion.

Jennifer Thorne is a research assistant at ACEEE. Margaret Suozzo is an ACEEE research associate.

Sidebar: Fighting Energy Thieves Abroad

What You Can Do: Unplug your TVs, VCRs and cable boxes when not in use (and when you go on vacation). Buy low-leak sets and appliances. Look for the EPA's Energy Star logo on TVs and VCRs. Tell your cable company to provide more efficient, low-power cable boxes.

For more information, contact: The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy [ACEEE, 1001 Connecticut Ave., Washington, DC 20036, (202) 429-8873, www.aceee.org].