Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Skipweasel writes:
In article , john.plant90
@ntlworld.com says...
Are there really Tellies that use 5 watts on stand-by.

Old ones, yes (and more).
Just checked a 20+ year old 14" colour portable, and it's
8W on standby. It will be going to the tip when analogue
is switched off.

It's not just the telly though. The combination of telly, DVD and Set
Top Box drew nearly 60W when "off". The chief vilain was the STB, which
gobbles power even when on standby. They all go off on a wall switch
now.

Most TV's are designed to be sold into many countries.
Since some countries have very strict limits on standby
power (i.e. less than 1W), most TV's are manufactured to
those standards, and we benefit even though there is no
such requirement in this country. A 2 year old Panasonic
DVB LCD I just measured at something like 0.5W standby.

STB's on the other hand are more country-specific, so
there's been no incentive to produce efficient models for
the UK. Many don't actually reduce power at all on standby.

Likewise the stack of stuff behind the computer. Two computers, two
printers, two monitors, two reading lamps with transformers, two sets of
speakers, router, HiFi. It was drawing nearly 100W on standby before I
fitted a night switch.

I suspect your 60W and 100W figures are way off, but the
point is still valid. There are many crappy wall-warts
around nowadays which waste more energy than they deliver.
There are also some newer ones with extremely low power
wastage when unloaded, which I've noticed on some laptops
and phone chargers, almost certainly driven by the
requirements of one or more of the countries they're sold
in to.

So what?