Carl Tyler's Blog

1 - I remember googling the question of how much power is used charging vs. running and I'm pretty sure I found people that had tried it out and reported the results.

Last summer IBM had (or still has) a green push where they were asking us to run off battery during the peak working hours, and then charge it during the evening (when electricity was less in demand). I'll be curious to see what you find.

2 - I can't wait to get one of these. I was blown away to learn (on the Today show) that the consumption of an entertainment center only goes down to about 25% (if memory servers correctly) in the off state. Then there is office equipment; printers in standby mode. This is a very cool tools.

3 - The Kill-A-Watt is a great device. I will be watching to see your results.

The biggest surprise I found was in fact relative to my home entertainment equipment. My DVR consumes 30 watts when it is on. It also consumes 30 watts when it is "off"! Now, I realize that it is essentially a computer but my laptop when on and idle uses only 18 watts. Just think of how many of these things are out there and how much they are wasting. Yikes.

4 - @3 30 watts when it is "off"!

That's messed up. During the same segment; on the Today Show during Green Week they showed a remote device that you can wrap around your home power meter to show real time consumption. You can even plug in your per Kw rate and it will give you the monitory rate at which your consuming.

NBC should get HUGE credit for all the wonderful advice they passed on during Green Week, you know, the week just before "Where in the World is Matt Lauer". The special where they fly him, and a huge crew all over the world to show off remote lands and cultures. To fully off-set the huge carbon foot print of the adventure; Matt saved water by not saving.

5 - If you plug one kill-a-watt device into another, can you find out how much electricity it takes to run one of these?

BTW, the fact that electricity is in less demand after hours really doesn't mean anything unless your electric service is configured to monitor and bill you based on the time of day.

6 - Oooh - very interested to read your results

7 - @5 in the UK, when I left at least, electricity was cheaper in the evening and during the night. Hence people having storage heaters, and running the dishwasher and laundry over night.