Wasting energy

A new study has found that leaving everyday appliances on "standby" costs UK households between £50 and £86 a year on average. Televisions, satellite boxes and other video and audio equipment are the worst offenders, but people are increasingly leaving computers, mobile phones and other appliances from washing machines to dishwashers on standby, where it is still using energy.

Standby use accounts for about 9% to 16% of the average electricity bill of £530 a year and is helping to push the UK's electricity use upwards, but with little benefit to consumers, according to a new study called Powering the Nation, from the Energy Saving Trust (EST).

People are also failing to use their domestic appliances efficiently, the study found, especially when washing clothes and dishes. According to the study, households are spending at least £80 a year on laundry with 5.5 washes a week when they could be more sparing with water and still remain clean!

In households with a tumble dryer, more than four-fifths of the washing is dried using electricity, while households with dishwashers fare even worse, spending twice as much washing their crockery as they do on their clothes.

The findings come from the Household electricity use study, undertaken by the Energy Saving Trust and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Under the study, a total of 251 households had their habits examined from 2010-11, with 26 of these watched for a full year and the remainder for about a month. This is a situation not only in UK but the worldover. Who will call a halt to such wasteful practices? Is this due to lack of awareness of the energy situation? Or is it simply because power still is largely cheap?