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Actual Power Draw of all Household Devices on Standby

SupraSPL

SupraSPL

Solar Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 28, 2022
Messages
222
I went through each breaker last night to test the standby power consumption of all household devices. I was curious which circuits were drawing what and it is tough to measure the power usage of some of the small devices or hardwired devices. So I clamped (Uni-T UT210E set to 2 amps) the DC power wire going into the inverter (Vevor 24V 3500W PSW HF) and then zeroed it out, then turned the loads on off on off to make sure it was repeatable. This is the wattage actually pulled from the batteries.

Wyze Wifi Camera V2 2W
Wyze Wifi Powered Outlets off .2W on .6W
Wyze Outdoor cam base station 1.86W
Remote controlled outlet .72W
Lighted extension cord .11W
Lighted power strip 0W
Power strip with power sense off .35W on 1.06W
GFCI Leviton 20A Hospital off .8W on .98W
GFCi Legrand 20A off .6W on .6W
Stove/Oven clock 1.52W
Motorola Modem Router Combo ~9W
Ethernet router 8 port .6W
WiFi extender .93W
Inverted DC ceiling fan low 2W mid 10W high 25W
AC ceiling fan Hunter low 10W high 73W
Samsung Inverter Washing Machine off 1W
Samsung Dryer off 1W
Midea Inverter Air Conditioner 1.36W
AC Watt meter .5W
120V 10A Mechanical timer glowing .5W
120V 15A Mechanical timer .5W
Ryobi 120V to 18V fast charger .53W
Oil furnace transformer with lighted wifi thermostat 4.2W
LG OLED TV .27W

Curious about AFCi breaker but didn't have one to test.
 
Many low power devices use a series voltage dropping capacitor for standby power so the true power is not just V x A. They have almost zero for power factor.
 
It sounds like we're talking about vampire power losses, due to power supplies and whatnot that continue to use some bit of power even when the main functionality of the device is "off" (you're not using it). Even when you think the device is off, the manufacturer has designed in one or more "features" that require some power consumption.

I moved to individually-switched power strips a few years back, and now I can hit a master switch at night to kill power to everything on that strip, or individual switched if I won't be using a particular device for awhile. That's the 1st reason I use power strips.

The 2nd reason is that each power strip has surge protection in it, so there is a bit more protection for the devices on the strip.

The 3rd reason is THD. Every modern device has an SMPS power supply, either in the form of a wall wart, or a power board that is separate from the electronics board. These eat any kind of power, and provide clean DC to their circuitry. The problem is that these each throws off a bit of THD. Add to that the fact that we now have dozens, if not hundreds of such things in our households, and there is now a fair amount of THD on your house wiring.

It doesn't matter how "clean" the grid power or the power coming from your inverter is ... it's getting dumped into the dirty pool of your house wiring, running all this noisy equipmet.

The individually switched power strip allows me to power off things (wall warts) that we aren't using, and this cuts down on both vampire power use, and THD output.

Thanks to OP for measuring ... add to those the idle watts of your inverter, and there's some real power being "wasted". While some might throw a few more solar panels into the mix, the rest of the world is consuming (paying) for lots of power not being utilized during the day when at work, or night when asleep. Someone is making some money from all that.

I did throw the main breaker one night, after everyone went to sleep ... that was one quiet night, and the batteries were still full the next morning (fridge had ice bottles in it, one of the tricks we use to keep it at a reasonable temp with no power). Only the inverter was drawing power from the battery bank.

Hope this helps ...
 
RCinFLA said:
Many low power devices use a series voltage dropping capacitor for standby power so the true power is not just V x A. They have almost zero for power factor.
Click to expand...
Yes true and this makes it tricky to measure on the AC side because some power factor seems to causes more current draw on DC side and some doesn't. So these loads were measured on the DC side to really get to the bottom of it.
 
50ShadesOfDirt said:
I moved to individually-switched power strips a few years back, and now I can hit a master switch at night to kill power to everything on that strip, or individual switched if I won't be using a particular device for awhile.
Click to expand...
I use this method behind the TV to make sure my receiver and sub amp are truly off. The receiver (9amp Onkyo) pulls 160W simply by being turned on (worth it once in awhile)and throws heat just sitting there. The PS5 was pulling 40W in sleep mode! So I put all those on a power strip for when I'm not using them.
50ShadesOfDirt said:
Every modern device has an SMPS power supply, either in the form of a wall wart, or a power board that is separate from the electronics board..hundreds of such things in our households, and there is now a fair amount of THD on your house wiring.
Click to expand...
Yes and this is another thing that can make it hard to measure device consumption because in some cases they "help" each other and in some cases you might have power factor corrected supplies. Overall this is one reason I try to run devices directly off DC wherever possible. Led strings, fans, router, modem, battery chargers, RV pumps, bluetooth speakers, tablets, cell phones, hard drives and (boost to 19V) laptops etc. One of my MPPTs is dedicated to charging a 12V bank and the rest are for the 24V bank partly for this reason but also so I can still use 12V inverters and bargain 12V lifepo4 batteries I already have. Cameras are too spread around everywhere so wall warts for them all unfortunately.
50ShadesOfDirt said:
Thanks to OP for measuring ... add to those the idle watts of your inverter, and there's some real power being "wasted".
Click to expand...
This turned me off from the all in one units when planning the system, the overhead seemed too high (50-100W). So I went for individual inverters that can be turned on if needed but 95% of the time I run on just the Vevor 3500. Here are some of the static draw figures for 120V Pure Sine Wave inverters I have measured:

Vevor 24V 3500W HF = 6.8W
Renogy 12V 2000W HF = 8W
Renogy 12V 3000W HF = 8.5W
Renogy 12V 3000W LF = 23W
Samlex 24V 3000W HF = 23W
Sungoldpower 12V 3K LF = 46.5W
Sungoldpower 24V 4K LF = 49W

The Samlex and Sungoldpower both have have power save feature that drops static draw to about 5W when there is no load on AC side. This makes them great for well pump circuits that are used intermittently although RV pumps are even better solution in some cases. The LF inverters in that list all have AC battery charger function and the HF do not.

My system has 5 MPPT chargers running and each is 1.5 to 2W so a total of 9W there or 125 watt hours over a long winter night. I have found it is not worth it to disconnect them at night because I forget to plug them back and lose so much more so not a sustainable practice unless emergency.


 
Last edited:
While I had the system under control that night (fridges were off etc) I tested the efficiency of the 3 inverters I had currently installed. I put the exact same, small sized load on each inverter and quickly switched between them to check actual power draw (clamped on the DC side just like before). Then I added a medium load (80 gallon hot water heater running on 120V) on each and here are the results.

Vevor 24V 3500W HF - 125 W
Renogy 12V 3000W LF - 129.8 W
Samlex 3000W HF - 135.7 W

Vevor 24V 3500W HF - 1232.2 W
Renogy 12V 3000W LF - 1252.8 W
Samlex 3000W HF - 1261.4 W

So the Vevor was slightly more efficient in each case and I should add it was the quietest and cheapest of the 3, with the lowest static draw/overhead. I made sure to do the test quickly so the inverter fans didn't kick on but the Renogy and Samlex both use a lot more fan power than the Vevor as well and both are loud when the fans run. The Vevor is stingy with it's fan for better or worse I do appreciate that because I tinker down there a lot. The Samlex and Vevor fans are variable but the Renogy fan is either on full blast or off.
 
50ShadesOfDirt said:
It sounds like we're talking about vampire power losses, due to power supplies and whatnot that continue to use some bit of power even when the main functionality of the device is "off" (you're not using it). Even when you think the device is off, the manufacturer has designed in one or more "features" that require some power consumption.

I moved to individually-switched power strips a few years back, and now I can hit a master switch at night to kill power to everything on that strip, or individual switched if I won't be using a particular device for awhile. That's the 1st reason I use power strips.

The 2nd reason is that each power strip has surge protection in it, so there is a bit more protection for the devices on the strip.

The 3rd reason is THD. Every modern device has an SMPS power supply, either in the form of a wall wart, or a power board that is separate from the electronics board. These eat any kind of power, and provide clean DC to their circuitry. The problem is that these each throws off a bit of THD. Add to that the fact that we now have dozens, if not hundreds of such things in our households, and there is now a fair amount of THD on your house wiring.

It doesn't matter how "clean" the grid power or the power coming from your inverter is ... it's getting dumped into the dirty pool of your house wiring, running all this noisy equipmet.

The individually switched power strip allows me to power off things (wall warts) that we aren't using, and this cuts down on both vampire power use, and THD output.

Thanks to OP for measuring ... add to those the idle watts of your inverter, and there's some real power being "wasted". While some might throw a few more solar panels into the mix, the rest of the world is consuming (paying) for lots of power not being utilized during the day when at work, or night when asleep. Someone is making some money from all that.

I did throw the main breaker one night, after everyone went to sleep ... that was one quiet night, and the batteries were still full the next morning (fridge had ice bottles in it, one of the tricks we use to keep it at a reasonable temp with no power). Only the inverter was drawing power from the battery bank.

Hope this helps ...
Click to expand...
Do you or have you utilized timers on any of your power strips? We’ve done this in the past with our deep freezers overnight
 
SupraSPL said:
I use this method behind the TV to make sure my receiver and sub amp are truly off. The receiver (9amp Onkyo) pulls 130W simply by being turned on (worth it once in awhile)and throws heat just sitting there. The PS5 was pulling 40W in sleep mode! So I put all those on a power strip for when I'm not using them.

Yes and this is another thing that can make it hard to measure device consumption because in some cases they "help" each other and in some cases you might have power factor corrected supplies. Overall this is one reason I try to run devices directly off DC wherever possible. Led strings, fans, router, modem, battery chargers, RV pumps, bluetooth speakers, tablets, cell phones, hard drives and (boost to 19V) laptops etc. One of my MPPTs is dedicated to charging a 12V bank and the rest are for the 24V bank partly for this reason but also so I can still use 12V inverters and bargain 12V lifepo4 batteries I already have. Cameras are too spread around everywhere so wall warts for them all unfortunately.

This turned me off from the all in one units when planning the system, the overhead seemed too high (50-100W). So I went for individual inverters that can be turned on if needed but 95% of the time I run on just the Vevor 3500. Here are some of the static draw figures for 120V Pure Sine Wave inverters I have measured:

Vevor 24V 3500W HF = 6.8W
Renogy 12V 2000W HF = 8W
Renogy 12V 3000W HF = 8.5W
Renogy 12V 3000W LF = 23W
Samlex 24V 3000W HF = 23W
Sungoldpower 12V 3K LF = 46.5W
Sungoldpower 24V 4K LF = 49W

The Samlex and Sungoldpower both have have power save feature that drops static draw to about 5W when there is no load on AC side. This makes them great for well pump circuits that are used intermittently although RV pumps are even better solution in some cases. The LF inverters in that list all have AC battery charger function and the HF do not.

My system has 5 MPPT chargers running and each is 1.5 to 2W so a total of 9W there or 125 watt hours over a long winter night. I have found it is not worth it to disconnect them at night because I forget to plug them back and lose so much more so not a sustainable practice unless emergency.
Click to expand...
On the receiver, that’s why I’ll eventually have Class D Amps vs Class AB. I don’t think anyone can actually hear much of a difference in the newer ones. At least in my age bracket. I don’t think I will be getting rid of my Pioneer SX-1250 though. It’s an art piece if nothing else.
 
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SilverbackMP said:
On the receiver, that’s why I’ll eventually have Class D Amps vs Class AB. I don’t think anyone can actually here much of a difference in the newer ones. At least in my age bracket. I don’t think I will be getting rid of my Pioneer SX-1250 though. It’s an art piece if nothing else
Click to expand...
I will have to look into that also. When buying receivers a few years back I was just aiming for big clean power. But now I use a 4 watt JBL Flip4 most of the time and it sounds great for casual use but it's nice to have the big system there for once in awhile use.

My sub amp is a BASH 300S and as you say, doesn't have that insane standby power but yet has plenty of power to effortlessly drive an 18" sub. When turned on it is 12 watts and when playing reasonably loud the most I saw was 50 watts on the power meter.
 
GOO5E said:
Do you or have you utilized timers on any of your power strips? We’ve done this in the past with our deep freezers overnight
Click to expand...
I feel like this doesn't save any power? Don't you have to put in just as much, if not more, energy once it comes back on?
 
Lt.Dan said:
I feel like this doesn't save any power? Don't you have to put in just as much, if not more, energy once it comes back on?
Click to expand...
But it doesn’t draw power when there’s no PV available
 
Lt.Dan said:
I understand. Prevent draining the battery even further overnight.
Click to expand...
Yessir. In the freezers specifically, since they are mostly full of meat, and stay closed overnight don’t lose much temp at all either so the cycle time in the morning to compensate isn’t crazy
 
Daddy Tanuki said:
but when in the off or idle mode i doubt that really save that much power. when cranking out music yes they use a lot lless but i think idle current is going to be close.
Click to expand...
That's a good question, from what I am reading class D should drastically reduced both standby power and when cranked.

I had to go back and edit my original post the Onkyo draws 160W turned on but not playing. Not a big deal because most of the time I have tons of extra solar power but for those times when its too hot in the house or energy gets tight in the winter, JBL Flip 5.

Damn now I'm in a rabbit hole and I'm going to have to fab up a 24V DC class D amp to drive my tower speakers
 
I wonder how many of us are holding onto our onkyo receiver lol.
A few years back I just couldn’t find something of reasonable quality worth replacing it with
 
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