Electricity consumption of audio and video gear

[Willem]

Energy consumption has become increasingly important, for both ecological reasons, and with current energy prices also for financial reasons. This thread is meant to exchange factual information on electricity consumption from various kinds of AV gear.
So let me kick off with an example. Our current set top box consumes about 15 watts when in a sleepmode from where it can be woken up pretty quickly, so thisconsumption is 24/7 (plus a bit more when are watching, which we do not do much). That amounts to about 135 kW a year, and to provide some kind of benchmark, it equals to roughly 6% of the electricity consumption of an average Dutch household. So this is already quite a lot, but it pales into insignificance compared to the previous set top box provided by our cable company: about 70 watt. It too had to be on 24/7, so the annual consumption was just over 600 kW. At current Dutch prices that would have been a 550 euro annual bill. Of course, prices will come down again, and the government has announced a price cap for the amount of energy consumed by an average family, but I fear that even if prices will come down again, energy prices will remain quite high for a long time to come. So I think it is something to be aware of.

 

[fpitas]

My whole setup is on a hefty power strip, which is turned OFF when not in use. Frankly I'm a little paranoid about line surges in my area, so that offers a lot of protection as well as being thrifty on standby power. Of course, I had to use only the finest super-audiophile power strip from Amazon

 

[Willem]

We also turn off the rest of the gear, but if I do that with the set top box it takes ages to restart.

 

[Eetu]

The MiniDSP Flex consumes 2.5-3.1W on standby which is roughly the same as my RPi4 media server. I don't understand why they didn't make an effort and go for <0.5W

 

[fpitas]

I don't think standby power is a sexy selling feature...yet.

 

[DSJR]

We turn EVERYTHING off when not in use. We only watch telly in the evenings, so the set and box are only on then (we put up with the several minute box boot-up time. Laptops in use most daytimes, but when sleeping or not in use, their supplies are disconnected. heating off until the weekend (beginning of October) so we're wearing extra layers.

The stereo only gets a couple of hours a week currently and that's always off until use (no warm up crap in the components I'm using).

 

[MCH]

The MiniDSP Flex consumes 2.5-3.1W on standby which is roughly the same as my RPi4 media server. I don't understand why they didn't make an effort and go for <0.5W

Maybe someone more knowledgeable can correct me if necessary, but from what i understand, devices sold in EU since a few years must have a standby mode that uses <0,5W but one exception to that are tv and devices that connect to a network, in that case the limits are much higher (3 to 12w currently). I believe bluetooth capabilities make a device qualify for this category.
Another example taken from the legislation:
"A wireless speaker to which audio can be streamed over a wired and/or a wireless connection is considered to be networked equipment."

A good advice is to check out devices that have network connections and don't assume they are only using 0,5 W

 

[NiagaraPete]

Living close to Niagara Falls we don’t think too much about quality, quantity, reliability, of power. But the cost is a huge part of our household expense.

 

[-Matt-]

My wife accidentally left the oven on yesterday after cooking our meal; we didn't notice until 3 hours later.

Estimates:
Fan over: 2500W x 3h = 7500Wh
Large OLED TV: 150W

So to waste the same amount of energy as that little slip-up I'd have to keep the TV on for 5 hours a day, for 10 days!

Things with heaters or motors waste the most energy. A good excuse to forget about the hoovering and order a takeaway!

 

[Scgorg]

Don't forget that the vast majority of power used for audio equipment is eventually turned into heat! Most speakers are less than 1% efficient, and all the excess would go towards reducing your heating bill by the same amount (if you use electrical heating and not gas or a heat pump, that is). If you have a very efficient system, such as a high-efficiency class D amplifier and speakers with enormous woofers and compression drivers, then you're not using much either way.

The amount of acoustical power put out by a system is in almost all cases fractions of a percent of what you've put in. And since we all need some heating for our homes in winter time, I suggest simply enjoying your setup and not thinking too hard about the precious 0.3kWh of acoustical energy you're wasting per year.

 

[Multicore]

The MiniDSP Flex consumes 2.5-3.1W on standby

i am quite disappointed with this. my flex draws so much current the sensing power strip doesn't detect when it's in standby. my buckeye/hypex is better (i'm probably exaggerating but you know what i mean)

 

[TrevC]

My wife accidentally left the oven on yesterday after cooking our meal; we didn't notice until 3 hours later.

Estimates:
Fan over: 2500W x 3h = 7500Wh
Large OLED TV: 150W

So to waste the same amount of energy as that little slip-up I'd have to keep the TV on for 5 hours a day, for 10 days!

Things with heaters or motors waste the most energy. A good excuse to forget about the hoovering and order a takeaway!

Of course the oven has a thermostat, so it would have only wasted a fraction of that, dependent on the heat leakage from the oven and the temperature set. And in the winter you still have the benefit of the wasted heat warming the home.

 

[Willem]

I don't think standby power is a sexy selling feature...yet

I do think it will become more important for people. I was quite surprised and annoyed when I discovered some of the numbers. I am more than happy to use electricity for something I value, but I don't like to see it wasted. I am particularly bothered by stuff that is on 24/7, if only because our solar panels only produce electricity during the day. Another example, though not audio related, is that of the two older water pumps for our floor heating system. Between them, they consume 150 watt, and that 24/7. Modern ones consume about half that, so I ordered new ones.
My wife and I do a lot of work at home, so our computers are on for much of the day, including for music while we work, but also for video conferencing. Older desk top computers are extremely power hungry compared to modern ones like a NUC, and something like 500 kW per year is apparently not exceptional for an old but still fairly powerful one. We already replaced my old and slow one with a fast NUC in an Akasa fanless case, and that probably reduced consumption by some three quarters. Replacing my wife's old but very fast computer may well happen soon too. In my case, I also need a new/second monitor, and I noticed that for the same size there are substantial differences in power consumption.
These examples suggest that it pays to consider electricity consumption when you buy new gear, and that replacement may have become economic sooner than in the past.

 

[jogi]

I use headless Plexamp as my primary streamer installed on RPi. And Plex media server installed on my 5 years old server which I designed to have lower power consumption (choosed motherboard with the lowest power consumption in tests, intel mobile cpu, lower power platinium power supply). The power consumption is around 19 Watts. But still maybe 16 hours a day it would be running doing nothing. So I was looking for a solution to be able to put the server easy to sleep and than wake it up. And i wanted it to be comfortable (without need to login to the server etc.). Firstly I installed sleep-on-lan on the server. This way i was able to not only wake up the server using WakeOnLan magic packet but also to put it to sleep. Next I installed Homebridge on the RPi (which is always on). And installed the Script2 plugin into homebridge, so it can invoke the wakeonlan command and also check (via ping) if the server is running or not. After that the server behaves like apple homekit accessory. I can easily turn it on/off from Apple Home app on phone, mac or even tell Siri to do it, I also can see if the server is on or off and even put it in my Good Night scene so I can be sure that the server sleeps when I sleep. It also works from outside my home network. Waking up the server from sleep is instant (less than a second). And the power consumption in sleep is 2.5 Watts.

 

[-Matt-]

Of course the oven has a thermostat, so it would have only wasted a fraction of that, dependent on the heat leakage from the oven and the temperature set. And in the winter you still have the benefit of the wasted heat warming the home.

Quite right.

I found another estimate online for time averaged consumption of a fan oven as 700W.

So I'm down to just a 14 hour straight TV viewing stint to equate to the 3 hour oven mistake!

 

[Willem]

I just looked up the power consumption of my Quad electrostatic speakers: 6 watts each, so leaving them on 24/7 as recommended adds up to just over 100 kW a year, or 90 euros at current Dutch prices. I am not sure how much I would save turning down the little led lights on the front.

 

[RichB]

I believe the EU already has requirements for standby power.
Most products I own already have a few-watt to sub-watt standby options.

I suggest our friends overseas rethink the requirements of their citizens for reliable energy.

Spoiler

Hint: During an energy crisis that will cost lives, do not decommission nuclear plants.

- Rich

 

[fpitas]

Don't forget that the vast majority of power used for audio equipment is eventually turned into heat! Most speakers are less than 1% efficient, and all the excess would go towards reducing your heating bill by the same amount (if you use electrical heating and not gas or a heat pump, that is). If you have a very efficient system, such as a high-efficiency class D amplifier and speakers with enormous woofers and compression drivers, then you're not using much either way.

The amount of acoustical power put out by a system is in almost all cases fractions of a percent of what you've put in. And since we all need some heating for our homes in winter time, I suggest simply enjoying your setup and not thinking too hard about the precious 0.3kWh of acoustical energy you're wasting per year.

Quite right! I'm using horns, so I get to feel smug now. Except for the class A amp I use to drive them

 

[RichB]

Quite right! I'm using horns, so I get to feel smug now. Except for the class A amp I use to drive them

I took my daughter to Avatar 3D. We drove 12 miles there and back and there were only 5 people present.
Oh dear.

- Rich

 

[Hipper]

I'm a 'turn off when not in use' person.

Recently my UK internet service provider, Virgin, who also provide a conventional telephone line service (yes, I'm the person that still uses a landline!) have 'upgraded' my service which will involve my telephone line going through the router. I was checking out my router costs. It seems when it's on it runs at 12 watts.

Until now I've just been turning the router on when I want to use the internet, I estimate about three hours a day. For a year that's (12x3x365) 13kWh. On my current tariff that's about £5. If I have the router on all day it's (12 x 24 x 365) 104 kWh. That equates to £38.

In other words if I want the telephone to be available all day it will cost me £33 more per year. My guess is that Virgin will save some money by not having to power up the old telephone system - or hire it from BT - and I'm paying the cost.

What I'll probably do is only use or listen to the phone when I need the router for the internet or wish to make a phone call. People can leave messages!