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The One Watt Initiative is an energy-saving initiative by the
International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector, with a recent focus on curbing carb ...
(IEA) to reduce
standby power Standby power, also called vampire power, vampire draw, phantom load, ghost load or leaking electricity ("phantom load" and " leaking electricity" are defined technical terms with other meanings, adopted for this different purpose), refers to ...
-use by any appliance to no more than one
watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
in 2010, and 0.5 watts in 2013, which has given rise to regulations in many countries and regions.


Standby power

Standby power, informally called ''vampire'' or ''phantom power,'' refers to the electricity consumed by many appliances when they are switched off or in
standby mode Sleep mode (or suspend to RAM) is a low power mode for electronic devices such as computers, televisions, and remote controlled devices. These modes save significantly on electrical consumption compared to leaving a device fully on and, upon resu ...
. The typical standby power per appliance is low (typically from less than 1 to 25 W), but, when multiplied by the billions of appliances in houses and in commercial buildings, standby losses represent a significant fraction of total world electricity use. According to Alan Meier, a staff scientist at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
, standby power before the One Watt Initiative proposals were implemented as regulations accounted for as much as 10% of household power consumption. A study in France found that standby power accounted for 7% of total residential consumption, and other studies put the proportion of consumption due to standby power at 13%. The IEA estimated in 2007 that standby produced 1% of the world's
carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...
(CO2) emissions. To put the figure into context, total air travel contributes less than 3% of global CO2 emissions.
Standby power Standby power, also called vampire power, vampire draw, phantom load, ghost load or leaking electricity ("phantom load" and " leaking electricity" are defined technical terms with other meanings, adopted for this different purpose), refers to ...
can be reduced by technological means, reducing power used without affecting functionality, and by changing users' operating procedures.


Policy

The One Watt Initiative was launched by the IEA in 1999 to ensure through international cooperation that by 2010 all new appliances sold in the world use only one watt in standby mode. This would reduce CO2 emissions by 50 million tons in the OECD countries alone by 2010; the equivalent to removing 18 million cars from the roads. In 2001, US President
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
issued Executive Order 13221, which states that every government agency, "when it purchases commercially available, off-the-shelf products that use external standby power devices, or that contain an internal standby power function, shall purchase products that use no more than one watt in their standby power consuming mode." By 2005, South Korea and Australia had introduced the one watt benchmark in all new electrical devices, and according to the IEA other countries, notably Japan and China, had undertaken "strong measures" to reduce standby power use. In July 2007, California's 2005 appliance standards came into effect, limiting external power supply standby power to 0.5 watts. On 6 January 2010, the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
's EC Regulation 1275/2008 came into force regulating requirements for standby and "off mode" electric power consumption of electrical and electronic household and office equipment. The regulations mandate that from 6 January 2010 "off mode" and standby power shall not exceed 1 W, "standby-plus" power (providing information or status display in addition to possible reactivation function) shall not exceed 2 W (these figures are halved on 6 January 2013). Equipment must, where appropriate, provide off mode and/or standby mode when the equipment is connected to the mains power source.


See also

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Carbon footprint A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...
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Energy conservation Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively (using less energy for continuous service) or changing one's behavior to use less service (f ...
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Energy-Efficient Ethernet In computer networking, Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) is a set of enhancements to twisted-pair, twinaxial, backplane, and optical fiber Ethernet physical-layer variants that reduce power consumption during periods of low data activity. The i ...
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Energy policy Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contri ...
*
Low-carbon economy A low-carbon economy (LCE) or decarbonised economy is an economy based on energy sources that produce low levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHG emissions due to human activity are the dominant cause of observed climate change since the mi ...
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Standby power Standby power, also called vampire power, vampire draw, phantom load, ghost load or leaking electricity ("phantom load" and " leaking electricity" are defined technical terms with other meanings, adopted for this different purpose), refers to ...
* Voltage optimization


References

{{Reflist, 30em


External links


Things that go blip in the night, Standby power and how to limit it
International Energy Agency/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 2001
International Energy Agency

Standby Power Home Page
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
California Electric power Energy conservation International Energy Agency