Gadgets slimming down power demand

WE all love our gadgets, and love having more and more of them, but technophilia has a downside: running all those gadgets takes energy - a lot of it.

As consumers have stocked their homes with big-screen TVs, computers, mobile phones and increasing numbers of other consumer electronics and tech products in recent years, those products have been sucking up more and more power.

Consumers not only have more gadgets, but in many cases the new tech products use more power than comparable ones used in the past.

"We are consuming more electricity per home because of all these additional devices," says Bernadette Del Chiaro, who works on clean energy issues for Environment California, a non-profit environmental advocate.

"They use way more electricity than you think."

For individual consumers, that means higher electric bills. For society as a whole, it means increased generation of greenhouse gases.

Fortunately, energy experts say, you do not have to throw out your new LCD TV to curb your energy consumption.

There are some easier, less painful steps you can take, and new technology either already on retail shelves or coming online soon should help consumers cut their consumption even more, they say.

"With few exceptions, energy efficiency is an afterthought with manufacturers," says Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defence Council, an environmental advocate.

"The good news is this is starting to change."

A representative of the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry group, notes that the energy consumption of many products has come down considerably over time.

The association, which advocates voluntary rather than government-imposed efficiency standards, has created a website where consumers can search for energy-efficient tech products.

The amount of energy consumed by gadgets is rising rapidly at a time when consumption by other appliances, such as refrigerators and air-conditioning units, has fallen markedly. In 2001, the average US household used about 778kW hours a year - about 7 per cent of total electricity use - to power tech gadgets, according to the US Department of Energy.

That was up from about 633kW/h a year - or 6 per cent of total home electricity use - in 1997.

The increase is partly due to the proliferation of devices. Digital video recorders, MP3 players and wireless routers have gone from exotic to common over the past 10 years. Mobile phones have grown in popularity, and many consumers have gone from having one PC at home to two or three.

Along the way, consumers have frequently replaced older tech products with ones that are bigger and faster - and that often consume more power.

Televisions with liquid crystal displays, for instance, are typically more efficient than older ones with cathode ray tubes, but consumers often replace their older TVs with much bigger ones, which reduces any efficiency gain.

Consumers might regard the energy used by these devices as a fair trade for the benefits they offer, but much of the energy is consumed when the devices are not in use. Recharge units that remain plugged in even when disconnected from a mobile phone still suck down electricity.

Some devices use almost as much power when turned off as when they are on. When you turn off a cable set-top box or a DVR, you are often just turning off the LED light, notes Michael Kanellos, a senior analyst with Greentech Media, a researcher.

"You are saving almost no power," he says.

With recent spikes in energy prices, growing concern about global warming and prodding from regulators and advocates, the electronics industry has increasingly focused on efficiency issues, analysts say. Many devices now use less power in standby mode than they did before, for instance.

"We have seen improvements in the amount of power computers are drawing," notes Steve Kleynhans, an analyst with technology analyst Gartner.

The growing use of portable devices - mobile phones and laptop computers most notably - has also forced manufacturers to think more about energy efficiency to extend battery life and reduce overheating.

"All gadgets that run on batteries have to sip power," Klenhans says.

More improvements are on the way. Replacing the fluorescent backlights in LCD TVs and computer monitors with LEDs promises to make those products more efficient.

New power strips already on retail shelves will shut off power completely when they sense that the devices attached to them are not in active use.

There is much consumers can do, too, including shutting off devices when they are not in use, adjusting settings on devices so they consume less power, and shopping for gadgets with the Government's Energy Star rating, which identifies the most efficient products in a particular category.

Mostly, though, it just takes awareness by consumers of how much energy their gadgets are using, experts say.

They have an incentive to do so: conserving electricity saves money.