Low power mode energy demand of household appliances—SELINA and APP projects

In the last decades, it has been recognized that energy consumption in low power modes for electrical and electronic products is an important issue. There is a need to expand energy efficiency efforts beyond simple standby modes into the new more complex area of networks, thus tackling the new paradigm of living based on the Internet of Things. The European project SELINA carried out a large scale in store monitoring campaign, measuring about 6300 different equipment. Since then, there is no reference to other similar market surveillance studies being carried out in Europe. In Asia, a market surveillance campaign performed by the Asia Pacific Partnership with measurements on a regular basis has been very successful. SELINA results show that 18.5% of the measured products present power values higher than the 2010 EC 1275/2008 regulation threshold in off-mode, and for standby this value reached 31%. When a comparison is made with the 2013 EC 1275/2008 regulation threshold, these values increase twice. The Asia Pacific Partnership results alert policy makers that low passive standby does not guarantee low active standby. Several studies indicate that consumer electronic products are becoming more efficient and their energy consumption is decreasing. However, because the ownership of appliances is also increasing, these improvements in energy efficiency do not seem to have significant impact in the overall consumption of the households. In addition, there is evidence that not all appliances in the market reach the performance announced by the manufacturers. Recent measurements carried out by the Natural Resources Defense Council on flat screen TVs revealed that their real energy consumption seems to be higher than announced in the label. This shows the urgent need for measurement campaigns, since no market surveillance is being carried out on regular basis, and trusting the manufacturer’s data seems to be unreliable.