Does anybody know of an authoritative source for ‘parasitic electricity consumption’ in buildings?
I don't know such a source but still give some comments.
- Small consumers like WIFI: 8W typical
- older wake up clocks and bell transformers 3-4W piec
- older radio's 3 W also if the button is off.
- some printers and faxes 10W stand by
- some desktop computers with audio: 15W stand by
- one can save also while cooking with less water and a double cover on the pot.
and now some bigger ones:
- 150 liter electrical boiler: 1.5kWh/day no load loss, just to keep it warm.
can be reduced to 0.5kWh/dag with 12cm rockwool and pipes insulation, so
some 40W stand by can be recovered (I did it for two boilers)
- Circulating pumps in homes: from 80W typical to 20W with PM BLDC motors.
if it works 1/3th of time : 20W average can be recovered.
New refrigerators take an average of 15W only, a wifi is about 50% of a good refrigerator...
What helps are energy meters in the wall socket.
I did modify some to measure down to 0.1W
I did help some publication in EOS magazine (Dutch), as these items should be dissiminated to a larger public
http://www.eosmagazine.eu/Portals/0/Achtergrond/Eos%20-%20Energievreters%20-%20november%202010.pdf.
with google translate you can get about 90% of the contents.
Magazines of electricity distribution in Belgium do not want to publish such things.
They say that it is too complicated for the average user.....
They retained only the double cover on coocking a pot.
There is a new law concerning circulating pumps.
We are also governed by financial and political people which hardly know or do not want to know about stan by energy consumption....
I imagine that one can save an average of 100 W continuous if everything in ghost consumption is followed up.
This is about 25% of the consumption of a dwelling which is lost in stand by.
Typical consumption of a dwelling: 10kWH/day
Hours in a year: 8765
My speciality is Power Electronics, not energy in buildings as such. Power electronic design is usefull to reduce the stand by of power supplies and the use of energy efficient motors like BLDC.
Hi Alex
Good heavens that was a formidable answer. Thank you so very much indeed for your time.
You are right in that I don’t think we have a reference source for valid figures on parasitic energy use. Party because manufacturers are so coy about disclosing any information. But I think ICT and auxiliary pumps/fans in buildings are among the worst offenders. Perhaps the introduction of smart meters might cajole the governing classes to do something about this wasteful use of precious energy.
I wish you very well (and might visit your beautiful city of gent sometimes next year…).
- Best
Mohammad
There are also studies for office buildings
I know that
Wim De Groote
(Owner and Sr Expert Energy Efficiency at E-ster )
might have publications about it in his previous job
I have also a view on lighting:
One should reduce the requirement for lighting in offices and auditoria to 250 lux instead of 400 lux. The reason is that screens and beamers are not well visible in 400 lux environment and that the light does not add to comfort. The energy savings with an efficient relighting at lower lux level is very large. One should allow people who need more light than 250lux to give it locally.
The savings could be 10W/m¨2 office at 1000-2000hours/year. This is also non negligible. It also makes the buildings cooler in summer.
So adapting standard is Imperative.
In the Netherlands they are busy with it, but Belgium and UK? In fact it should be an European directive.
Standards are made by production companies and people who don't pay the electricity bill themselves.
If you buy lamps, don't buy below 60 lumen/watt....
One can do a lot in thermal insulation and management as well, but this is quite well kown today. But things like blowing cold air in the buildings at night in summer, and aerating non preferential rooms (garage, basement) only during day can also help. We could develop systems there, but who finances?
Prof. Alex Van den Bossche
We are in total agreements regarding lighting levels in offices. lighting consultants argue that they design daylight connected lighting systems, so natural light does most of the work, but I think 400 Lux is excessive for the modern predominantly ‘screen-based’ office activity.
Your made a poignant point about the standards. UK is governed by art, history and law graduates from Oxford and Cambridge and the last time we had an engineer in the government cabinet was about 30 years ago! Although they claim to seek advice from engineers…
Would be great to meet sometimes in future.
Mohammad Royapoor.
You can find significant measured values regarding the standby losses in several EU projects. The data are quite interesting and a vast number of measurements can give you details. Some basic facts regarding global trends in standby and related literaure which will help you is as follows :
Even though this energy consumption could be easily considered negligible for a single device; when the millions of appliances installed around world are considered, and the fact that this energy is consumed continuously, the energy consumption is not negligible. Currently, it represents 5-11% (depending on the region and related estimations) of the total electricity demand in European households (excluding electric space heating and electric hot water preparation), mostly concentrated in entertainment and office equipments; studies from other parts of the world tend to show similar results.
EU through the EcoDesign Directive have launched studies (LOT 6, LOT 26) in order to determine the magnitude of these losses as well as the reduction potential and the related policies to determine especially these losses. In December 2008, the EU Commission adopted the Commission Regulation (EC) No 1275/2008 referring to standby and off-mode electric power consumption, targeting to a reduction of 35TWh in 2020.
The term “standby losses” describes better the presented situation because of the electricity consumption of electronic devices while “off” or in a powered down state, and nowadays, it is the most accepted as these electric loads have been labeled in literature as “vampire”, parasitic or simply leaking electricity.
Typically, standby losses occur in different condition or “services” provided to the user. In such functions the device is waiting to be turned on and requires power either to be able to respond to a signal (e.g. remote control), to maintain an environment beneficial to the user (memory) or to speed up the device’s response to an on signal. Other functions, such as clocks on microwaves and DVDs, offer a legitimate service to the user, although it is not the primary function of the device. Other loads are pure losses and offer no service to the user. Standby also includes electrical power consumed by appliances that use other fuels as their primary energy source (e.g. gas water heaters or space heaters).
Household standby consumption was the subject of many surveys and measurements in the last decade. The best of them have been used by European Union, USA DOE, Japan, Canada and International Energy Agency (IEA), in order to evaluate the standby losses and to determine the potential for reducing them .
The fact that energy labels and a few Minimum Energy Performance Standards have been introduced in the EU, in the last fifteen years, has increased the sales of more energy efficient appliances. On the other hand, the number of electrical and electronic loads which are connected to the AC supply, typically all the time, has also been increased. The IEA estimated that, even with a continuation of all existing appliance policy measures, the appliance electricity consumption will grow by 25% from 2000 to 2020.
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Thank you so much for your contribution Constantinos.
If 35tWh of reduction (what a colossal figure! ) is achievable (by 2020), then I think both science and law-making should do something about it.
Thanks also for the references which I will keep coming back to.
Regards,
Mohammad
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