thinking of getting rid of the desktop PC to save electricity.

Mailman

I have a desktop PC which I think is using a couple of KW of electricity a day and I'm thinking of making the change to a laptop.
The desktop PC has an 19" LCD and has 2.6GHz celeron processor but I can't figure out how much electricity it is using.
The PSU doesn't have a figure printed on it.
Anyone got any ideas as to how much electricity a typical reasonably modern Dell desktop PC uses.

I'm thinking of moving to a laptop anyhow for convenience but I've been looking at my ESB bill which is the biggest indicator I have of my carbon footprint and the only remaining big energy muncher left to account for the KW I use is the PC.

Macha

WHy don't you change to Airtricity?

Think of the embodied energy in your new laptop & how are you going to recycle your PC?

Try setting up the power options on your PC properly using the Control Panel or download this application: www.localcooling.com (site not working at the moment)

Mailman

don't have to worry about scrapping as that is what adverts.ie is for.
I have already enabled power management.
I don't want to switch to Airtricity.

chat2joe

don't have to worry about scrapping as that is what adverts.ie is for.

.... so it'll still be using up power somewhere else - in addition to a new laptop! :P

Mailman

who is to say it will be switched on for more than an hour any day with a new owner. the new owner if they buy this won't be placing an order for a new piece of hardware.

Macha

Did you come here to look for a greenwash for your purchase?

It doesn't sound like you're that interested in cutting your ecological footprint (let alone your carbon one)

Mailman

taconnol wrote: »

Did you come here to look for a greenwash for your purchase?

It doesn't sound like you're that interested in cutting your ecological footprint (let alone your carbon one)

Shut up you pompous self-righteous tool!
Do you think I'm looking to you for absolution?

jawlie

taconnol wrote: »

WHy don't you change to Airtricity?

What happens when the wind isn't blowing?

Cabaal

PC v Laptop eh

Well lets see, my desktop, monitor, 4 external drives uses about 100Kw when not in use but plugged in and approx 250 when in use.

In comparison my laptop uses a max of about 80, so there is power saving to be made

Just by having my PC plugged in and not switched on costs me approx 36e a year, so if your not already plugging out your machine when not being used I suggest you do!

Cabaal

jawlie wrote: »

What happens when the wind isn't blowing?

so there's no wind blowing in the numerous area's their operating wind farms, suree...
http://www.airtricity.com/ireland/wind_farms/republic_of_ireland/operating/index.xml

abit of a pointless comment tbh

oscarBravo

Mailman, one more outburst like that will earn you a ban from here.

Mailman

I stand over what I said!
Self-righteousness of the type displayed by Taconnol does nothing to help the green movement and I object to it.
Misguided individuals like him alienate the mainstream.

Also, heavy handed moderation won't do anything to improve the quality of the SOC sub-fora.

With regard to why I won't use Eirtricity:
Wind Turbines are making feck all contribution to the grid especially at the times they are needed and are being pushed as a means to clear one's conscience when reduction in usage is the fix that is needed.
Eirgrid graphs show their contribution in real time and prove this.
On top of this most of them were built as tax avoidance schemes thanks to Government policy in recent years which was only changed in the budget of the year before last if I remember correctly.
I do not like that Eirtricity match or are slightly more expensive for Electricity than ESB and that most of the Eirtricity electricity comes from inefficient oil and coal stations and I have no expectation that switching to Eirtricity will change this in the medium to long term future. I'm not getting in to an argument on this point here.

brianthebard

you realise op that far more energy goes into the production of a new laptop than you will ever save by it being a bit more efficent than the old pc?

oscarBravo

Mailman wrote: »

I stand over what I said!
Self-righteousness of the type displayed by Taconnol does nothing to help the green movement and I object to it.
Misguided individuals like him alienate the mainstream.

Also, heavy handed moderation won't do anything to improve the quality of the SOC sub-fora.

I think you mistook my clearly-stated moderation instruction for an invitation to have a discussion on the topic. Keep it civil, or don't post here.

Mailman

Yes, I realise most of the carbon footprint is made before the machine is delivered to my door.

Mailman

oscarBravo wrote: »

I think you mistook my clearly-stated moderation instruction for an invitation to have a discussion on the topic. Keep it civil, or don't post here.

So I can be pompous, self-righteous and a general ass but heaven forfend if I'm uncivil?

oscarBravo

Sigh. Mailman banned until he grasps the concept of posting within the terms of a charter.

Macha

If you're reading this mailman - I'm female. But good work on the assumptions.

Also an the topic of being misguided - first off its 'Airtricity' (not to be confused with Eirgrid). Yes wind benefited from large incentives (side note: every business is involved in tax avoidance, its standard procedure) and perhaps that was unfair to other up-and-coming technologies such as PV. Not really a reason not to use it IMO. Plus whatever support the wind energy industry has received PALES in comparison to the fossil fuel energy industries. Yeah, a state monopoly and owning the national grid is quite the handy number. ESB are now planning on going on strike because the government is trying to comply with EU law and separate the grid into a separate company: Eirgrid. If you're looking for side-reasons not to use a company, I would suggest ESB's blatant attempts to hold onto an unlawful monopoly and hold the country to ransom as one that should be near the top of your list.

As for prices, I think that with the latest ESB price increases, Airtricity is slightly cheaper (although I can be corrected on that). Even if this isn't the case, they certainly will become cheaper and cheaper into the future as fossil fuel prices increase. It's a no-brainer.

Reduction in use and increased efficiencies are but one part of a set of initiatives that must be followed. It would be as silly to increase efficencies and ignore renewable energies as it would be to invest in renewables and ignore efficiencies. THey're two sides of the same coin.Airtricity and ESB are obliged to declare their fuel mix so we can clear this one up pretty quickly. In 2006, ESB used 9% renewables and in the same year,Airtricity had 89% renewables.

I think misinformation like the contents of your post does more damage to challenging environmental behaviour because there's always the chance someone will believe this sort of unfounded nonsense.

Macha

I think the contribution they're making to the grid is more a reflection of the early stages of the wind industry here and the fact that they're going to have to wait for the national grid to be upgraded to suit windpower.

Also I think the 'Reduce' in that phrase refers to a reduction in consuming goods as well.

Anyway sorry for the greenwash post - twas a bit preachy alright. I'm in foul humour over my dissertation.

mumhaabu

oscarBravo wrote: »

Sigh. Mailman banned until he grasps the concept of posting within the terms of a charter.

uuuh, intermod fighting, sits backs with popcorn and watches!

Mailman, I recommend you get one of those meters you plug in which will allow you to meter the power being used by the appliance. Another option if you are a greenhead would be to buy a small turbine and battery bank and inverter and power things that way. However I suspect you would actually release more Co2 than you'd save. Take pity on me who must drive several miles to get a connection near decent enough to upload or downlopad anything bigger than a meg or two.

jawlie

Cabaal wrote: »

so there's no wind blowing in the numerous area's their operating wind farms, suree...
http://www.airtricity.com/ireland/wind_farms/republic_of_ireland/operating/index.xml

abit of a pointless comment tbh

It's actually a serious question. If one decided to reply on wind power for ones electricity, what happens when the wind doesn't blow?

I know intelligent people who think it can be stored in batteries! My understanding is that the other producers of electricity have to have sufficient reserve back up to step in when the wind doesn't blow, other wise those who have opted to have their supply produced by wind power would find that they have no electricity when the wind doesn't blow.

zod

jawlie wrote: »

It's actually a serious question. If one decided to reply on wind power for ones electricity, what happens when the wind doesn't blow?

I know intelligent people who think it can be stored in batteries! My understanding is that the other producers of electricity have to have sufficient reserve back up to step in when the wind doesn't blow, other wise those who have opted to have their supply produced by wind power would find that they have no electricity when the wind doesn't blow.

There are plans to create a wind super grid. The wind is always blowing somewhere. These plans will never come to fruition if the wind farms themselves are never built albeit with their current limitations.

Also storing energy is not impossible ( witness some 1960's thinking http://www.esb.ie/main/about_esb/history_turlough.jsp ) it's just difficult.

gerky

Batteries mightn't be that far away, there's several companies working on storage for wind turbines.

jawlie

zod wrote: »

There are plans to create a wind super grid. The wind is always blowing somewhere. These plans will never come to fruition if the wind farms themselves are never built albeit with their current limitations.

Also storing energy is not impossible ( witness some 1960's thinking http://www.esb.ie/main/about_esb/history_turlough.jsp ) it's just difficult.

gerky wrote: »

Batteries mightn't be that far away, there's several companies working on storage for wind turbines.

It would be marvellous if we could store the surplus electricity created when the wind is blowing, and use it when becalmed. I think I am right in saying that the most efficient of our wind turbines is producing electricity something like 30 or 35% of the time, for for 65% or 70% of the time our most efficient wind generator is not producing anything.

token56

jawlie wrote: »

It would be marvellous if we could store the surplus electricity created when the wind is blowing, and use it when becalmed. I think I am right in saying that the most efficient of our wind turbines is producing electricity something like 30 or 35% of the time, for for 65% or 70% of the time our most efficient wind generator is not producing anything.

The assumed load factor for wind is ~40% so your not far off, whether this is a reasonable assumption is still debated. In terms of being able to store electricity the current plan is that when the east - west interconnector is put in place we will be able to export our extra wind to england, up to 500MW to the best of my knowledge. Furthermore there are actually two east - west interconnectors planned, one which is to be owned by EirGrid and another by Imera see http://www.imerapower.com/ when they are both built there will be a capacity of 1000MW, keeping in mind our peak demand is just less than 5000MW.

All of this doesn't help what happens when wind isn't blowing however.

After a bit more research in certain scenarios the load factor for wind can be as low as 30%, if not lower so you would be correct

BendiBus

jawlie wrote: »

It would be marvellous if we could store the surplus electricity created when the wind is blowing, and use it when becalmed

Thsi is being investigated right here in Ireland.

http://www.vrbpower.com/docs/news/2008/news_20080708.pdf

maniac101

jawlie wrote: »

It would be marvellous if we could store the surplus electricity created when the wind is blowing, and use it when becalmed. I think I am right in saying that the most efficient of our wind turbines is producing electricity something like 30 or 35% of the time, for for 65% or 70% of the time our most efficient wind generator is not producing anything.

A 35% load factor refers to the average output from a windfarm over a longer period. It doesn't mean that the windfarm isn't producing anything for 65% of the time. What's more important is the variation in the output. If we have 1000MW of wind for instance, then that load factor would give us an average 350MW of output. However, the output could vary between 0 and 1000MW on any given day. Therefore the grid needs to be able to respond to a variation that is as big as the total installed wind capacity, using a combination of interconnectors, storage and fossil-fuel plants.

token56 wrote: »

The assumed load factor for wind is ~40% so your not far off, whether this is a reasonable assumption is still debated. In terms of being able to store electricity the current plan is that when the east - west interconnector is put in place we will be able to export our extra wind to england, up to 500MW to the best of my knowledge. Furthermore there are actually two east - west interconnectors planned, one which is to be owned by EirGrid and another by Imera see http://www.imerapower.com/ when they are both built there will be a capacity of 1000MW, keeping in mind our peak demand is just less than 5000MW.

As I've said here before, this 1000MW (still several years off) needs to be seen in the context of up to 4000MW of installed wind capacity by 2020, and consequent 4000MW fluctuations in daily supply.

probe

If one may be so bold as to deviate back to the topic of this thread :-) anyone who uses a "laptop" PC, should be sure not only to plug the PC mains adapter out from the mains, but to unplug all devices including USB, Firewire and any other things plugged into the laptop when it not being used and powered off.

If you simply disconnect the laptop from the mains, (eg overnight) you may find that you have only about 80% of the battery power remaining in the morning (even though it was 100% charged when you retired). Attached devices suck power out of the battery overnight, which will be taken back from the mains when it is powered on next day to recharge the battery.

Alternatively remove the battery(ies) from the laptop.

.probe

Builderfromhell

probe wrote: »

If one may be so bold as to deviate back to the topic of this thread :-) anyone who uses a "laptop" PC, should be sure not only to plug the PC mains adapter out from the mains, but to unplug all devices including USB, Firewire and any other things plugged into the laptop when it not being used and powered off.

If you simply disconnect the laptop from the mains, (eg overnight) you may find that you have only about 80% of the battery power remaining in the morning (even though it was 100% charged when you retired). Attached devices suck power out of the battery overnight, which will be taken back from the mains when it is powered on next day to recharge the battery.

Alternatively remove the battery(ies) from the laptop.

.probe

Thanks for that Probe. Seemed to be going off topic a bit there. Am I correct in thinking that a desktop uses much more electric than a laptop. I work from home and have 2 desktops, 1 lap top, a scanner, a big printer, and often Pocket PC & phone plugged into computer. It never occurred to me to unplug at end of day.
I usually, have one or two computers on all day but with screen turned off when not in use.
Any advice on cutting down on electric appreciated.

smadger

Consider a device like http://www.oneclickpower.com/ (there are others available in places like Maplin) on your desktop. Once you switch of the desktop, it cuts the power to your other devices (printer, monitor, etc). At that stage you should only be powering an 'off' computer, drawing about 5 watts (ie. enough power for the motherboard to recognise when you press the on button). Should cost about €7/year to leave PC in this state.

Builderfromhell

Thanks for that Smadger. I'll check it out.

probe

Builderfromhell wrote: »

Thanks for that Probe. Seemed to be going off topic a bit there. Am I correct in thinking that a desktop uses much more electric than a laptop. I work from home and have 2 desktops, 1 lap top, a scanner, a big printer, and often Pocket PC & phone plugged into computer. It never occurred to me to unplug at end of day.
I usually, have one or two computers on all day but with screen turned off when not in use.
Any advice on cutting down on electric appreciated.

A laptop typically consumes around 90 watts/h.

Desktop machines are in the 250 to 1500 watts/h range or higher. A power user's desktop with 8 core Xeon 5400 processors, say 16 GB of RAM, NVIDA Quadro FX 5600 graphics card, a few hard drives, large flat screen monitor might be heading for a consumption of 2kW/h. This excludes the air conditioning which a room with a few of these babies will require.

I've been using laptops for nearly a decade - once I found high end products that were as fast as a "desktop" machine. Laptops also have the benefit of a "UPS" - ie when the mains fails, they keep on running, and they are quieter (aside from some Dell laptops - Dell has not engineered its notebook PCs cooling system as well as say Sony). Anyone buying a new laptop should make sure it has an Intel Penryn processor - they run cooler and consume less energy.

.probe

Pgibson

jawlie wrote: »

What happens when the wind isn't blowing?

Buy a bicycle-powered pedal generator such as this one:

http://www.econvergence.net/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=econvergence&Product_Code=PAWA-1&Category_Code=5

Good for the old ticker too.

.

siralfalot

okay.........

So Mailman comes on looking for some advice on saving running costs on a PC, is preached at by another poster (who later apologizes for preaching) but stands his ground as is his right, and yet he is banned??

some advertisement for a green movement! :rolleyes:


Probe is spot on with his power usage figures

oscarBravo

siralfalot wrote: »

So Mailman comes on looking for some advice on saving running costs on a PC, is preached at by another poster (who later apologizes for preaching) but stands his ground as is his right, and yet he is banned??

Discussion of moderation is off-topic. Don't go there.

Nonmonotonic

But wind power isn't.

Belfast

this should tell you how much power your are using
Plug-in Electricity Cost and Usage Calculator or Plug-In Mains Power and Energy Monitor
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=power%20meters&source=15&menu=-6&WorldSearch=Y&SD=Y

GetGrowing

I can highly recommend getting a meter like the one Belfast recommends above. We got one a while ago and went round the house checking to see how much power different things use. The kids thought it was fascinating and now are much more careful about turning their stereo off etc.