Turn your gadgets off standby and save the country £600m
BRITISH households could save £600million a year in energy costs by switching their gadgets off standby, a charity claims.
Leaving devices on when they could be off adds around £30 a year to energy bills, the Energy Saving Trust said.
The number of gadgets in homes has gone up by 31 per cent since 2010, a survey for Big Energy Saving Week found.
The increase is particularly evident in the kitchen, where the number of small appliances has risen by 58 per cent, with more than twice as many households now owning smoothie-makers, electric juicers and ice-makers compared with five years ago.
Some 78 per cent of people admit to leaving at least two devices on standby, and 53 per cent leave the television on in a room when they are not watching.
Almost half of those who leave their TV on standby do so because it is more convenient, and 22 per cent say it is because they cannot access the plug or see no reason to turn it off. A fifth of people even leave several televisions on so they don’t miss anything when moving between rooms.
The number of people with set-top boxes has gone up by 52 per cent since 2010, and just leaving one of these on standby for 20 hours a day could cost £20 a year.
Big Energy Saving Week, which starts on Monday, is run by the Energy Saving Trust, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and Citizens Advice to cut fuel bills.
Energy Saving Trust boss Philip Sellwood said: ‘There is a growing black hole in our energy bills because we prefer the convenience of standby.
‘Getting down on your hands and knees and working out what you can and can’t switch off can be a real pain.
‘We suggest simply plugging everything you can switch off into one extension socket and everything you can’t into another.’