As part of my “spring cleaning”, and partly inspired by this “Earth Hour” thing, I did an inventory of all the connected electrical devices around my apartment.

I basically categorized them this way:

  1. Devices that are used all the time and must be connected: Lights, electrical heating, fridge, water heater and so on.
  2. Devices that are seldom used, but cannot be turned off completely or disconnected easily: Oven, washer, dryer, and so on.
  3. Devices that are on all the time, for some reason.
  4. Devices that are used enough to warrant leaving them in “low-power standby mode”.
  5. Devices I should turn off completely or disconnect when not used.

While I can’t do anything for the devices in categories 1 and 2, other than replacing them, my goal was to move as many devices to either standby or turned off as possible. For example, my “home server PC”, a Mac mini, doesn’t use much power, but do I really need to have to running all the time? So I programmed it to be in standby, and wake up only during the afternoons on weekdays.

For devices already in standby mode, are they used enough? For example, my Panasonic Blu-Ray player kept being warm, since it remained in standby mode, for what? About 10 seconds of boot time? Since my TV takes that much time to “boot up” anyway, I just need to power on both at the same time, and I’ll save all the electricity of keeping it in standby all the time.

I am generally less worried about laptops, tables and other battery-operated mobile devices when they stand in standby. They are already quite energy-efficient, running on batteries or not, especially when not actively used. Still, unplugging them from chargers reduces risks if there’s an electrical surcharge in the apartment’s wiring.