Smart Electric – Stopping Phantom Power Loss
September 8, 2009 
4 Comments
I’m on a quest to stop “Phantom Power Loss” in our home and become a smart electric saver! You may well ask, what is “Phantom Power Loss”, so here goes…
- Every household appliance uses electricity even when not in use, the biggest consumers are items like televisions and satellite or cable boxes.
- Electricity consumed by these everyday appliances whilst not in use is known as Phantom Power Loss.
- By implementing some easy household practices you can easily cut this power loss in half.
Reducing Phantom Power Loss
I recently read an article on “phantom power” used by household appliances such as televisions, satellite boxes and DVD players etc, and was astonished by how much electricity is used even when you aren’t using them! This started me on my “Smart Electric” quest to cut down the amount of power we waste…
I started in our main living room and worked through the house listing out the appliances and how much “Phantom Power” they consume, these figures show the amount of electricity they use whilst in the “Standby” off mode;
Main Living Area “Phantom Power Loss”
- Digital Cable Set Top Box = 18 Watts
- Plasma Television Set, 42″ = 7 Watts
- DVD Player = 2 Watts
- TOTAL = 27 Watts
Master Bedroom “Phantom Power Loss”
- Digital Cable Set Top Box = 18 Watts
- LCD Television Set, 24″ = 2 Watts
- DVD Player = 2 Watts
- TOTAL = 22 Watts
Office / Computer Room “Phantom Power Loss”
- Printer / Scanner Combo = 4 Watts
- Cable Modem with Wireless = 4 Watts
- LCD Computer Monitor, 18″ = 1.5 Watts
- TOTAL = 9.5 Watts
All Appliances Total = 58.5 Watts! (And this is when they’re not even being used!)
After my quick survey I could clearly see that by stopping this phantom power loss it would effectively be like removing a 60 Watt light bulb which is permanently switched on!
How did I cut my Phantom Power Loss?
I simply used a bunch of timer switches that we had left over from our Christmas decorations, they are set to completely cut power to our power strips at night from 11PM until 5:30AM.
Tell us about your experiences, we’d love to hear from our readers and see what ideas you have implemented to cut power loss in your home…
"Smart Electric" Cutting Phantom Power Loss
Timer Switch Used to Switch Off Consumers
The timers seem like a good idea. I just started using a power strip that has a wall switch to turn off whenever I’m leaving the house: http://tinyurl.com/la3x2b
Hi Kirsten, thanks for your comments, the power strip in your link looks really interesting. We’ve added it to our list of “must haves!”