Do you find yourself dreading your electricity bill each month when it arrives? Do you express surprise at the amount you see when you open the envelope? Do you have to sit down and figure out how that number was computed, because it seems just too much?
People have a tendency to underestimate the amount of electricity they use especially when there are so many ways it is wast
ed. Did you know that three pounds of carbon emissions are emitted from the average two-person household on a daily basis for appliances that are turned off? This is called a phantom load.
Appliances such as your TV, DVD player, and others that are thought to be turned off are actually only in standby mode, and use e
nergy from the equivalent of 12 power plants and cost a billion dollars annually. TVs, computers, game consoles, and phones appear to be the largest energy vampires.
Smart Power Strips
It’s time to put a stop to wasted electricity with the use of smart power strips. A smart power strip is a very helpful device that cuts off the flow of electricity to appliances when they’re plugged in yet turned off.
Smart power strips look like your typical multi-socket power extension and they work the same way to a point; however, a smart power strip recognizes when you’ve turned off your appliances. At that point, the smart power strip completely turns off your devices-it’s as if you unplugged them from the wall. Your gadgets and appliances will not eat up idle current.
With Smart Strip Power Strips, the outlets work together, auto-switching your devices on and off automatically, saving you money on your electric bills. Three of the outlets always have power, allowing you to plug-in devices that should never turn off (one of those is transformer-spaced). Of the other seven, one of the outlets is the main outlet, and the other six of the outlets are “controlled” (three are transformer-spaced).
Those six controlled outlets will automatically turn off whenever a 10%+ drop in current to the main outlet is detected, and automatically turn on when an increase of 7 watts or more in power to the main outlet is sensed. In other words, plug your computer into the main outlet, and its peripherals into any of the other six. When you shut down your computer, all of the peripherals will also turn off. When you turn on your computer, the peripherals will all turn on.
By using a Smart Strip at your work and entertainment centers, you will notice a significant savings on your energy bills, effectively banishing the energy vampires for good.
Of course, why is there a need for smart power strips if you can just unplug your appliances? Although the best way to stop idle current is to unplug all your devices when not in use, it’s not practical to do so every single time.
What if the plug for your TV goes all the way to the back and you have to move the whole thing to the side just to be able to reach it? What if you were really sleepy and forgot to unplug your DVD player? Those scenarios are just two examples in which you end up paying for wasted electricity when you shouldn’t have to. Why take the chance?
It’s better to use a smart power strip so that you don’t have any worries after you turn the switch off. Aside from nipping idle current in the bud, smart power strips also prevent power surges that regular power extensions can’t. It’s a benefit that will help your appliances have a longer life because of the added protection.
A smart power strip is an affordable tool to add to your how-to-save-more-money arsenal. Different kinds of models exist with varying numbers of sockets. Whatever your requirements are, there’s a model that suits your exact needs.