Firm claims silver bullet for 'vampire loads'

A Spanish company says it has developed a way to kill the vampires lurking in your living room--the numerous appliances that suck electricity even when they are not in use.

Good for You, Good for the Planet received a patent for a microprocessor-based design that cuts an electronic machine's electricity use to zero. It is now negotiating with several large manufacturers to incorporate the technology into power strips or into appliances, according to President Jorge Juan García Alonso.

Test products are being used at customers, including at a hotel and office building in Spain, according to a report. Commercially available products could be made more broadly available in a matter of months if the company successfully licenses its patent, García Alonso said.

Taking a bite out of electronic vampires could significantly reduce wasted energy. Good for You, Good for Planet says that a TV consumes more electricity per year when it's off than when it's on because the stand-by mode consumes electricity.

(Credit: Good Magazine)

In the U.S., "vampire energy" is about 5 percent of the energy consumed in the country and costs consumers $3 billion each year, according to the Department of Energy. Researchers at the University of California estimate that reducing stand-by power loss could save the U.S. $10 billion.

There are already products designed to stop the so-called phantom load of stand-by power. Smart power strips, for example, can tell when a TV peripheral is not being used and shut off.

Good for You, Good For the Planet says that its technology can detect when a device has gone into stand-by mode and then cut the current entirely. To reawaken a device, a consumer presses a button, according to the product description.

"With our technology you can have different configurations, as a power supply or a power strip, (and) you can launch a range of products to fix all the needs around stand-by for all kind of appliances, and in a pretty cheap way," García Alonso said.

Improving energy efficiency by cutting standby power on individual devices makes sense, but there's also a need to address networked devices, said Bruce Nordman, a researcher at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Stand-by power levels have gone down significantly in past years yet energy efficiency for networked devices poses a different problem because they typically require continuous power.

As electronic gadgets get more connected, consumers can connect different devices to the same screen. For example, multiple PCs or set-top boxes could share one screen, while future in-home displays could be both energy monitors and alarm system controls.

"So, zero-power has a place in our array of goals and approaches, but it is just one of many, and we need to be sure that attention to it doesn't detract from other approaches that may save more energy, more cost-effectively," he said.

[BirdDog01]

So is this "smart power strip" smart enough to reset all the clocks and programming?

[ducttape36]

i just use a regular power strip with a switch on it. i turn it off when im not in the room, and on when i am and want to use it. my tv and computer are both plugged into this strip and neither one loses the clock time when i shut the power to them off. my vcr however does, but i dont really care anyways cause of the clock on the tv and computer.

[lkrupp]

The whole reason so-called "vampire" energy is present is because people don't want to wait for their electronic device to warm up or turn on. Only the environmentally conscientious will care about this sort of thing. In California, of course, this device will immediately be made mandatory.

[ajhoughton]

That's only part of the story.

A lot of modern devices (in particular digital TVs, set top boxes and games consoles, though they aren't the only things in this category) actually *do* something when they're "asleep". Downloading software updates, for instance, or scanning for new channels or checking for messages.

That's probably why the plasma TV and game console are showing such large bars above. Similarly to some extent with computer equipment, which may still need to provide 5v or 12v power to e.g. a network card so that wake-on-LAN will function (hence it has to keep its main power supply at least partly active, which does use power).

[ajhoughton]

It's worth pointing out that some of this power is being used for useful functionality that may not immediately be obvious. Like automatically downloading updates (games consoles do this), scanning for new channels (digital TVs often do that), or even just keeping enough of the system alive for things like Wake-on-LAN to function (computers do that).

Occasionally the actual saving from cutting the power might not even be as large as you'd expect, because (for instance) some of the background activity that was using power when the device was "asleep" will simply be performed when the device is next powered on instead.

The right solution for the world's energy and carbon problems is nuclear power. First fission, since we know how to do that, and then fusion (which we should be spending *a lot more money on*).

[Hunnter2k3]

Indeed, while most "vampire" power isn't being used, quite a significant amount is still useful.

My Satellite receiver as an example, it downloads updates while it is in standby, or during the night, also does hard drive maintenance.
If i had to manually update it, or install updates while it is on, that would be a major annoyance, because it would have to turn off, then resync everything, scan channels, etc.
Only reason i know this is because the same thing happens when the power is cut from it.

But in a way, it would encourage more hardware makers to think more about their designs.
A battery here and a battery there could solve most of those problems with things like VCRs, DVRs, media centers, etc.
Some have batteries, but often they are terribly short lived. (few minutes at best)

[gsekse]

Cut the vampire power to a VCR and within a short time you have a flashing 12:00 again...

[siriusproductions]

I wonder how much power is used by the clock itself and how much by its display? Perhaps the VCR could be designed to have a battery backup for the clock, but to have the display shut off with the main power. When it's turned back on, the display would resume, but the clock would have continued running. The battery could be recharged when the main power is on and the battery backup isn't needed.

[fc1200]

I completly agree with everyone above while stateing that warwolves are killed by silver not vampires if your trying to be this clever then you shoukd watch a movie once and a while

[kmomrik]

Aside from the abominable spelling and grammar in the above sentence... Had you actually researched your vampire lore prior to this post, you'd know that silver actually is on the list of things that ALOT of literary figure believe vampires would be weak against. Most often those claiming Judas Iscariot was turned into the first vampire (turned into an eternal creature of the night for his betrayal) will say that silver is a vampire weakness becuase Judas was payed 30 pieces of silver for his act.

Just FYI...

As far as vampire power... I unplug my TV, DVD player (no clock) and Playstation2 when I'm not using them. Wouldn't do it to the VCR though (pain in the @$$).

[kmomrik]

As it stands, I criticize for spelling and grammar and then make the same mistakes myself... guess it is going to be a long day! It should've said "BECAUSE Judas was PAID"...

:) :) :) :)

[boxloud]

"ALOT" should be two words....just to point out more of your "abominable spelling and grammar"

[siriusproductions]

No doubt you're aware of the difference between a spelling mistake and a typing mistake?

You might also want to check the correct use of an ellipsis, which, by the way, has three, not four, dots. :-)

[SMB-IL]

An ellipsis has four dots if it's the end of a sentence. One of the dots is a period.

[shootfirst]

If you are that uptight about spending money on electricity just realize this is going to add cost and be another part that can fail which will cost money to repair. I work at a place that leaves tons of lights on for no real reason and that costs more than stupid phantom crap.

Lots of devices keep charges as it helps the life of the device, powering and unpowering take a toll on a device especially with cheap components. Part of owning electronic devices is realizing this.

If you really want to help the environment don't buy electronics go live in a tree and stop using the freaking internet as you won't believe how much power is wasted just keeping up all these servers so we can post in forums.

Also not to point out something that is rather obvious. Tie your crap you want off to a surge protector and just not be so lazy and turn the stupid thing off if you think you are wasting so much precious energy, you know the utility companies will just raise prices to recoup their losses after you save energy so why bother.

[diadmer]

One of the while-asleep functions that I didn't see on some of the lists mentioned above is keeping the remote receiver (be it an IR eye or an RF radio) active and waiting for the power-on click from the remote. You could save a fair amount of power if people were willing to manually power on their appliances (mostly talking home theater and TV in this case), but it would take a serious energy crisis to get people to give up that luxury on a widespread basis.

[Heebee Jeebies]

A lot of the comments here make sense. Some electronics actually do useful and important things when "turned off" things that may very well be worth the use of electricity. However, there is also a lot of products that are just wasting a lot of electricity as well. Electronic makers need to be made to make their products use as little energy as possible. I don't care what a plasma TV is doing when "turned off" it should not be using that much power. I don't care if it is building the next mars rover with no picture being displayed there is no excuse for that kind of power usage, the same for the game console.

What the problem is they electronic companies like the software companies that put out bloated buggy software simply don't care and unfortunately most consumers don't either even when they are wasting a 1/3 of the electricity they use and the money they spend on it. We need to demand better for all companies that sell us products and services, especially in this economy.

Robert

[3rdalbum]

If you turn off the standby power to your cordless phone, laptop and electric toothbrush, then your batteries are never going to get recharged. This is a much bigger problem than resetting the clock on your VCR!

[matthewbulat]

Consider buying appliances with the 1 watt standby standard. This will become required in Australia in 2012. Some appliances can have energy savings modes enabled such as VCRs and computers. Appliances can be controlled by timers or remote controlled power boards to save power. See how efficient you are by reading a checklist I have created. http://www.matthewb.id.au/media/Save_Energy_and_Money_Checklist.html
Regards
Matthew Bulat
http://www.matthewb.id.au/

[serift]

The plasma TV result is ridiculous. It seems to fall in line with all the other misinformation I see about plasma TVs nowadays. According to that chart, their plasma TV used 160 W even when off. I measured one and it used less than 5 W. There was an article elsewhere talking about how CA is going to require low power TVs and said that plasmas use over twice as much as LCDs. That's bull. They're just pulling the peak usage numbers. A plasma TV uses less power for dark scenes (like many movies and games) unlike LCDs, which are pretty much constant. I've compared a 42" plasma and a 32" LCD before, and the plasma used 2/3 the power of the LCD during dark scenes (and about 1/3 more during bright scenes).

[you_used2b_good]

I would definitely like to hear what Theodore Kaczynski would have to contribute on this issue.