2019-06-01
I recently swapped out all of the light bulbs in my house from CFL to LED in an effort to reduce my household power consumption. This effort got me thinking about other things in my house that consume power. So I did a quick audit of everything currently plugged in and turned on in my house. I used the same type of energy meter as the one I used in a previous post.
Here are the results of my audit.
| Appliance | Power |
| Refrigerator (averaged over previous 5 years) | 58 watts |
| Modem, router, wireless AP | 8.6 watts |
| “Smart” home base station | 4.1 watts |
| Garage door motor (standby) | 3.2 watts |
| Security camera | 1.5 watts |
| Laptop charger (laptop full) | 1.0 watt |
| Computer display (standby) | 1.0 watt |
| Touch lamp (standby) | 0.6 watts |
| USB charger with attached Qi mat (not charging) | 0.4 watts |
| USB charger with nothing connected | <0.1 watts |
| Charging base for vacuum cleaner (vacuum charged) | <0.1 watts |
| Microwave oven (idle) | <0.1 watts |
| Coffee machine (idle) | <0.1 watts |
I’ve had an energy meter connected to my fridge for more than five years at this point so I have a good idea of the average power consumption. The compressor in most refrigerators turns on and off during the day so measuring the power use is best done as an average reading over a long period of time. At this stage it looks like my next upgrade is a more energy efficient fridge.