Peg heard a story on the radio about an elementary student who found that his family could save $1 per day by turning off the family’s computer at night. Not only did he get an A in this science project, but the school system realized that they could save a lot of money by turning off their 500 computers after school. This sounds a little fishy. Our LWVO survey finds that just abut all schools turn off things not in use. Also $1 per day electricity savings seem huge; this is the cost of about 10 kWh. If the turn-off is for 10 hours, their system uses about 1kW.
I decided to check. Here are the data from The Texas Office of Risk Management:
Computer -------------- ----------------------- 250 watts
Monitor ----------------- -----------------------150 watts
Speakers --------------------------------------- 15 watts
Electric stapler ---------------------------------- 25 watts
Scanner ---------------------------------------- 150 watts
HP Laser Jet 4 Printer (Idle) ------------------- 250 watts
(Printing) ---------------1,175 watts
Total 840 watts when idle
1,765 watts when printing
It appears that the student’s estimate may not be far off. However, $1/day = $30/month is almost our entire electric bill.
We don’t have an electric stapler and our scanner is off when not in use. Furthermore, we have an ink-jet printer, which takes mush less energy than a laser. I figure that our system uses maybe 400-450 watts for 16 hours per day or around 200 kWh per month. which is maybe half of our electric bill. Still a lot!!
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