Energy Saving

When I got the new grow light at the end of 2020, I also bought a Watt meter to adjust the dimmer switch on the light to set it to the required wattage. At some point I went around the house testing the wattage of various things, and found that newer TVs on standby draw no power, or at least less than 0.1W (they must need some electricity to keep the red light on), despite what you read on many websites. Mobile phone chargers also don't draw any power if left on at the switch or if a phone with full battery is left plugged in.

The Virgin TV box draws around 20W constantly, even in standby, so now we have it in Eco Low Power mode which shuts it down when it's not been used for X amount of time.

An electric toothbrush charger draws about 0.2W constantly, even with no toothbrush attached, so it's best to turn them off at the plug when you're not charging (would cost about 34p a year if left on 24/7).

My laptop right now is charging and drawing about 17W at max screen brightness, 11W at minimum screen brightness, 0.5W with the screen off and on standby. The charge on a smartphone also lasts much longer if you lower the brightness.