The explosion in tech in the first decade of the 21st century has revolutionised the way we live, filling needs we never knew we had. The desire to invest in more gadgets and appliances has brought with it an increased need to be efficient and responsible in our energy use.
As a result, there is now considerable concern about how clean our tech is. Finding the right balance between cost, environmental concerns and usefulness is a crucial part of tech use and requires a combination of energy price comparisons and smart usage.
The good news is that establishing how ‘clean’ new appliances and gadgets are is actually simpler than you might think. So, how clean is yours?
Energy saving trends
This infographic highlights how laptop and tablet power consumption is a lot less than that of other common household appliances. New technology has to focus more on energy efficiency, ensuring our devices are saving us more money on bills and having a better impact on the environment.
Outlining typical tablet power use at between 10 and 25 watts, it points out that a simple action like watching a film on a tablet could use up to 33 times less power than watching it on an LCD television.
Alongside these relatively low running costs, the infographic also pointed out the possibility of zero-energy tablets, such as the award winning ‘ecoPad’. These computers would use a nano piezoelectric film to convert the energy created by typing and swiping into battery charge without conventional power.
With new iterations of current products being released, and making better use of the current resources, gadgets and personal technology are becoming increasingly energy efficient.
Traditional cutbacks
For other more traditional appliances, how expensive they are varies depending on their age and type of use.
Before you can begin tackling these products to make them more efficient, you must first understand how energy costs actually work. There are more than 30 energy supply companies operating in the UK with more than 20 power stations generating electricity and selling it on the wholesale market.
Despite this, gas and electricity suppliers do not have complete control of the prices they charge. In fact they are only responsible for 20% of an energy bill according to npower – meaning that other factors have considerable impact on the cost of energy.
When it comes to your appliances, older models, even from as little as six or seven years ago, are likely to be very energy inefficient compared with more recent ones. Therefore it’s important you upgrade where necessary and use appliances responsibly to cut back on energy consumption.
Both British and EU legislation now requires a grading system for white goods’ energy efficiency, providing information on general power consumption and running costs. Some will also provide scenario specific data, for example the amount of energy used in a full washing load.
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