Standby Energy Use in California Homes

Many electrical devices in homes continue to draw power while switched off or not actively performing their primary function. These devices include familiar appliances, such as televisions, microwave ovens, computers, set‐top boxes, mobile phone chargers, and video and audio components but also less obvious devices like dishwashers, tankless water heaters and smoke detectors. The energy use of these devices while in their low‐power modes is now about 980 kWh/year (or 112 watts) per home in California, corresponding to about 13% of the state’s total residential electricity use in 2006. If treated as a separate end use, low‐power mode energy use is the fourth largest residential end use. About half of the electricity in the electronics end use is consumed in the low‐power modes.