EEbeat

The DOE is cooking up an energy conservation standard to limit the power that microwave ovens use when they’re not heating up our food. While that may seem obvious (shouldn’t they use zero watts when they’re not heating something up?), the reality is that they never get to turn off and consume a surprising amount [...]

Last April, I wrote about attending the Ecodesign Directive’s Networked Standby (Lot 26) stakeholder meeting in Brussels, focusing on the energy wasted by network-enabled products (see: Can One Size Fit All With Networked Standby Power Regulation?). Lot 26 is very interesting because: (1) the power consumed by these products while idle will grow rapidly unless [...]

It’s no secret that the latest generations of home and office electronic products (i.e., TVs, DVD players, printers, major appliances, etc.) are being introduced with network connectivity capability. But what most consumers may not realize is that this added functionality comes at the cost of significantly increased energy consumption because many of these communication-enabled products [...]