Power DesignLine Blog
So-called vampire power boosts power bills
Maurice Wright
10/22/2008 12:04 PM EDT
Southern California suffered another round of wild fires last week and many homes were without power for a good reason. Luckily for us, knock on wood, the fires weren't near our home so far this year. So it was a complete surprise when out power went out one afternoon. We had flashlights and candles on hand and conveniently plenty of daylight to prepare. And SDG&E initially promised a repair around nightfall. Alas complications kept the house dark all night. My wife and son played Scrabble by the light of a battery-powered lantern. I didn't have a sufficient light to make my nightly attempt to catch up on reading trade and business journals so I stewed about the bill I had gotten a look at in retrieving the power company phone number.
I've long understood how much power devices that apparently are off can still waste. Moreover, companies like Power Integration have been on a campaign to spread that word for several years. Every time I meet with someone and discuss vampire power, I return home and go on a short crusade to unplug power wasters such as cell phone chargers, power tool chargers, MP3 player docking stations, and other wasters. Here's a blog post from a consumer site that details the many offenders.
I'm afraid my family is indicative of the general public. We take one step forward and two steps back. I no longer allow a desktop computer to be left running 24/7, although I do leave my laptop on. I bought a new low-power printer/copier/fax and even try to remember to power it off at the power strip -- there is no other way to remove power. If it stays on I still calculate that it uses $30 per month. But we continue to add rechargeable battery-powered devices such as the recent addition of a weed whacker and leaf blower. The battery powered devices are extremely convenient for a small California lawn, but the things must stay charged to be useful.
It's a bad time to be a power waster with the inevitable shortages and pollution problems, and the tough economic times. Once again we pledge to try and do better. But convenience makes it tough to actually remove power from the TVs in the house. Even the under-counter radio in the kitchen is really on when it looks to be off.
What's my message? Designers that can find even more ways to reduce passive power use will both be rewarded with successful products and should be recognized and celebrated for their efforts. Innovation opportunities exist everywhere from more-efficient wall warts to better power-management schemes in consumer products. Of course there are also power-saving mandates being pushed by governments around the world. Here's list from the Power Integrations web site.
Gotta go now. I just remembered I need to unplug my Slingbox. It's been sitting powered on but unused since I returned from a trip two weeks ago.
Comments
r3son8tr
10/23/2008 10:09 AM EDT
We need a "Universal Home DC Bus" powered by solar panels on the roof. Your location in CA is ideal for a test. This Universal DC Bus could be used to charge your cell phones, camera batteries, etc, and provide the standby power needed by all of your DVRs, TVs, icrowave oven clocks, etc.
The solar panels could be used to charge up a battery bank in the house. Low voltage wiring and special outlets are installed throughout the house to connect to the various devices that need standby power and/or recharging.
This system is totally off-the-grid, and is low power since we are not using the solar to actually power the devices (the DVR, TVs and such still plug into AC). I believe that existing photovoltaic technology could handle this.
Patent Pending.
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r3son8tr
10/23/2008 10:13 AM EDT
(I meant "microwave oven clocks" above)
But I agree that marketers need to think differently. Let's face it, they are the ones that either demand or reject product features, not the designers.
Why does a microwave oven even need a clock that displays time 24/7? The whole darn thing could just power down, and only display cooking time when it is actually turned on. All of my DVRs have a clock as well. I understand that they "need" to stay on to receive updates, but the clock display could be powered down, right?
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Artfldgr
10/23/2008 9:27 PM EDT
r3son8tr,
There is no reason why the clock has to be on other than MARKETING. Poor marketers think to 'add value' in ways that arent so original. Adding a clock to everything as a convenience has almost become a tradition. Such a change would be hard to have happen, since it has to do with tradition, and custom, and their idea of added value...
On the other hand, I have studied this problem and designed some solutions, others are just a gimmie's I am amazed are not done.
One of the biggest wastes is wall warts. Depending on what they are for, battery charging, speakers, cell phone charge, etc, they draw quite a bit of power (as stated above), and they lay around disconnected all day but still plugged in. Cell phone chargers are this way, and there are literally hundreds of millions of them. .
There is absolutely no reason that marketing cant add value by having the circuit cut power to the wart if the tip is not plugged in and turned on. However marketing is the same group that cant come up with better than sticking a clock in everything, so you can see that the source can explain a lot.
Basically such a circuit would use no power... a battery is there, but it is only used once power is needed if its designed right. The circuit is open. When the tip is used in a device, it closes the circuit, the circuit battery is used to kick on a switch/relay/circuit which turns on the device power, and power delivery cuts the monitor circuit. Disconnect or open the power circuit, no more power to switch/relay/circuit, and so circuit opens and goes back to waiting till its turned on by closing the circuit again and triggering the system to kick power on. This can happen in literally milliseconds.
The fact that not one cell phone company wall wart does this is incredible. If just the phone companies did this, literally millions of devices and lots of power would be saved. Maybe I will patent it by end of year if its not.
Youre not going to do much about instant on TV since people are too impatient. Its the downside of instant gratification.
I did create a prototype for a self charging battery... which would charge when you werent using it, and could charge faster if you left it in more favorable areas. Anyone interested can write me about that. Though I dont know if someone else has done anything similar since I noted the idea.
Its possible to design some interesting ways for buildings to generate power in cities, and there is another way to drop vibration below a problem level. Exploiting some common physics principals.
One can sell thermostat plugs... in this way a simple box fan in front of steam radiators in cities like NY would turn on and extract more heat from the system per unit time. And turn off when it shuts down.
There are literally dozens of products that could make energy usage lower for those that wanted to use them (and someone was making them). While solar isnt really all that cheap as a solution, it really isnt too hard to be able to mount on the side of a building a square of cells whose only purpose is to power a led light for the room. Its really a modest kind of thing, but in truth, the vast majority of us will sit and watch TV in a room with one moderate light source. So while its not practical yet to power whole buildings and things. It should be practical to be able to power one decent primary light source.
A few years back I designed a much better solution for buildings in seasonal areas. Its cheap, yet still havent seen someone capitalize on it given the simplicity of it.
All in all lots can be done all in all, the biggest focus is in the large and impractical for years kind of technology. (last time we did this kind of thing, all the businesses going into it got clobbered before they could work, because the Saudis would pull back then. I saw an interview once with a Saudi that explained this point).
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Happy Tinfoil Cat
10/30/2008 2:58 PM EDT
There are many ways to save energy but unplugging one of the current generation cell phone (switching) chargers is not going to make a difference. Asking people to rewire hundreds of millions of homes and replacing all their appliances for a DC bus doesn't sound practical. Closing the connection on a cell phone charger at the connector is suicide. The house current / voltage falling into your sink (GFI or not) or shorting would be hazardous. If the connection was made on the low side of the transformer you would not save any significant power versus a gate being turned off. Remember that half the power generated is lost during transmission to your home.
Back when California was at the mercy of robber baron energy companies and the price of electricity went up five-fold, we installed florecent lights which made a huge difference. Running your airconditioner one hour less per year would probably save more power than anally unplugging each device year long. My new 26 inch monitor uses 0.3W when off, why in the world would I unplug it?
Building "alternate" energy closer to home, or at home would save transmission waste. Solar panels used for space can handle upwards of 50 suns energy. Place a cheap fresnel lens in front a solar cell like that, focusing 50 times the surface area onto it and you've reduced the silicon cost of a solar cell by 98%. Finally, IBM is looking into this. Just think of the size of swimming pool you could heat by cooling that solar cell. If you home had the old style radiators, you could even heat your house. Even better, you could use the waste heat to generate even more power. I'd actually focus more than the rated amount of light onto it so that it would be most effecient at less than maximum light and use a sheild to block excess when needed.
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jwashell
11/6/2008 8:51 AM EST
I have a small 650W solar setup. As a hardware engineer, I've found cheap sealed lead acid cells, and inverters, and have kept my summer electric bill between $9-$11 -- which I think is the minimum service charge. It was a $3500 (5 x Kyocera 130W panels) investment in panels, but will provide electricity for 25-40 years. I live in Ohio, so I get a fair amount of sun, and still cannot use all the power during the afternoon. I have a 12V setup, mainly due to cost, I would prefer 48V, but the inverters are too expensive. I have a separate power strip for charging phones, cameras, ipods, etc. I don't see why every household couldn't be setup with panels, and provide a "Distributed" utility system. I think, for the average household, TV's and computers are much more significant KWRs per month than, wall warts. I use a "Kill-a-Watt" device to measure larger loads, TV, fridge, washer, etc, but find the "Kill-a-Watt" less than useful for phantom loads..
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6/23/2009 10:45 AM EDT
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