Watt’s the big deal? ‘Vampire power’

Plasma TVs, video game systems, smart phones, iPods, digital video recorders and other gadgets are practically mainstream these days.

The devices get cheaper, sleeker and more powerful all the time.

But they rely on one very low-tech feature — an electrical cord.

Many of these gadgets are incredibly compact, but when they are running or recharging their batteries, they can suck up vast amounts of energy. Some estimates suggest that electronic devices account for 10 to 15 percent of all home electricity use.

A sizable piece of this energy use is known as “phantom power” or “vampire power” because it occurs while the devices are turned off or not in active use.

“It’s one of those things with electronics; it’s a couple watts here and a couple watts there, and pretty soon it adds up to a lot of watts — and real money,” said John T. Thompson, a Buffalo State College associate professor of computer information systems.

There has been a push, reflected in the well-publicized marking of Earth Day today, to make consumers more energy-conscious on everything from light bulbs to dishwashers.

But that’s not the case for electronic devices. Most Americans want the latest and most impressive gadgets, and energy use isn’t a factor for most consumers in deciding what to buy.

“These are the devices of the day that do amazing things for us,” said Douglas K. Johnson, senior director of technology policy for the Consumer Electronics Association.

Now environmental agencies and electronics manufacturers are working to make sure consumers keep energy efficiency in mind when buying a device — and to make sure they manage their power use after they’ve taken it home.

“One of the things we don’t do well is communicate how much energy these devices use,” said Thomas W. Reddoch, executive director of energy utilization for the Electric Power Research Institute.

To put this in perspective, the typical American home in 1980 had 2.8 consumer electronic devices, while today it has 24 such devices, according to the electronics association.

Steve Poland, a tech entrepreneur, owns an extensive list of electronic devices that includes a 50-inch plasma TV, two laptop computers, three external hard drives, two video game players, two MP3 players, a BlackBerry phone and a digital camera.

“I would say that’s marginally [more than] your average individual,” said Poland, a Buffalo resident whose latest start-up project, InSeconds, is meant to help Web sites make money.

When consumers make decisions about which devices to purchase, they typically consider cost, performance, brand and style but not energy efficiency.

“In my mind, there’s an abundance of power, even though I’m sure it’s not the case,” Poland said.

The electronics association calculates that consumer electronics make up 12 percent of residential energy use, a finding in line with the estimates made by other agencies.

Larger, high-definition TVs consume more energy than older- model TVs, and television watching in general is rising as people have more viewing options today, the Natural Resource Defense Council noted.

The council and Ecos Consulting calculated that TVs in America consumed 46 billion kilowatts per hour of electricity in 2004 and estimated that this would soar to 70 billion by 2009.

The energy used annually by two DVRs, for another example, is equivalent to the amount of electricity consumed by the average refrigerator, said Mark M. Michalski, associate project manager for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, or NYSERDA.

An unexpected energy hog is the digital picture frame, which is growing in popularity as people take more photos with their digital cameras and the price of the frames comes down.

The devices use a lot of juice because many people leave them on all day and all night.

If every home in America used one digital picture frame, we would need to build five new 250-megawatt power plants, according to the electric power institute.

“It is not a concern at the individual level, but if you multiply [energy use] by 300 million people, then it becomes a concern,” said Cemal Basaran, an engineering professor and director of the Electronic Packaging Laboratory at the University at Buffalo.

Even when they’re turned off, as long as the devices or their chargers are plugged in, they are using energy. And this “vampire power” can be a big electricity drain.

In the typical American household, 75 percent of the electricity used for electronic devices is consumed when the devices are shut off, the U. S. Department of Energy found.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average American household spends $100 per year to power devices when they’re not in use, Michalski said.

“Everybody can be doing more to reduce their draw on the grid, and to reduce their costs in the process,” Thompson said.

Experts say that it is time to take the same “green” campaign that promotes fluorescent light bulbs and efficient refrigerators and apply it to these devices. Gaming consoles, for example, use an estimated 16 billion kilowatts per hour of electricity each year, the NRDC and Ecos Consulting found, enough to power San Diego.

Incorporating better, user-friendly power-management features on these video game players could lower their energy use by 11 billion kilowatts per hour, the agencies found.

This would lower the nation’s electricity bill by $1 billion and cut emission of 7 million tons of carbon dioxide.

Manufacturers are working to voluntarily disclose how much energy these devices use, and to highlight the most energy- efficient devices within a product category, Johnson said.

Manufacturers are making a greater number of devices that are more energy efficient, though consumers must make energy use a priority. “The fact of the matter is, consumers are going to buy what they want to buy,” Michalski said.

In addition, consumers can be mindful of their energy use.

Making sure you completely turn off and unplug the devices when you’re done with them is a basic way to cut down on energy use. Also, unplug the charger when you’re done charging a cell phone or MP3 player.

If people don’t want to constantly unplug and plug in these devices, NYSERDA recommends getting an advanced power strip. The strip allows devices that need to stay on all the time, such as a DVR, to remain on while cutting off electricity to the ones that don’t.

Green-friendly organizations also are making it easier for people to keep track of their electricity use online.

Also, companies are selling gadgets such as the Kill A Watt, which measures how much electricity a device consumes.

Users plug a gadget into the Kill A Watt, then plug the Kill A Watt into a wall outlet to get an energy-use reading.

“It’s way better than getting a bill at the end of the month and wondering, where does all that energy go?” said UB graduate student Kevin Lim, a blogger who studies technology and social media.

Some tech-savvy environmentalists have altered a Kill A Watt to make it send the data to their Twitter accounts.

And a municipal utility in Sacramento, Calif., experimented with sending statements to customers that compared them with average customers and with their most energy-conscious neighbors. The most energy- efficient customers received smiley faces on their bills, and the heaviest users got frowning faces. “It made it competitive,” Lim said, “and bred even more awareness.”

swatson@buffnews.com