The Equipment Energy Efficiency (E3) Committee is responsible for the development and ongoing operation of the Household Appliance Standby Power Data web page under the Asia Pacific Partnership (APP) Standby Power Project, which is part of the Building and Appliances Task Force (BATF).

Presentations and proceedings from the International Conference on STANDBY POWER India Habitat Centre, New Delhi India 2nd – 3rd April, 2008 are now available from the IEA website. See also the IEA Website on Standby Power Use and the IEA “1-Watt Plan” for more information.

A new interactive website provides a visual representation of the standby data collected and analysed to date. The charts allow particular products to be compared and also allow comparison of selected countries.

SELINA is a new Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) project supported by the EU and 12 project partners spread across 12 countries. The project aims to gain an understanding of the standby and off-mode electricity consumption of new appliances in the market. For more details see www.selina-project.eu

The Alignment of National Standby Power Approaches Project is being driven by the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency with assistance from Korea, as part of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate Change (APP).  The APP members include Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the United States of America.  The purpose of this union is “to address the challenges of climate change, energy security and air pollution in a way that encourages economic development and reduces poverty”. The standby project is one of several being undertaken by the APP’s Building and Appliances Taskforce (BATF).

Further information on the APP Standby Power project can be found at the interactive website. 

In 2008, a new IEA Implementing Agreement for a Co-operative Programme on Efficiency Electrical End-use Equipment (4E) was approved by the IEA Board. A group of 8 IEA member countries have joined forces in this implementing agreement to promote wider use of energy-efficient electrical equipment and household appliances, and another 4 countries are in the process of joining. Initially the 4E Implementing Agreement focuses on the areas with the best short-term potential for cutting down electricity consumption. The 4E Implementing agreement aims on sharing knowledge on a global scale and includes benchmarking and mapping energy saving potential in electrical appliances. The first projects focus on Standby Power, Efficient Motors and the growing energy consumption from Digital Set-top Boxes.

The new 4E Standby Annex is being led by Australia.  The purpose of this Annex is to undertake co-ordinated activities in support of policies which target the reduction of Standby Power. It is structured into two streams: (1) Support for policies to tackle standby power and (2) Information collection and dissemination.  The project will be conducted over 4 years.  Some of the activities relating to the Standby Annex are workshops, research and dissemination of horizontal approaches to policy setting including options by modes, groups of appliances, functions or clusters of functions.  It is also planned to assist the development standby power policies by maintaining information on national assessment studies, and providing guidance on how such studies should be undertaken.  Further information on the Standby Annex can be obtained from standby.iea-4e.org

An international project to collect standby data to track global standby power trends has commenced. The aim of this project is collect data for a representative “basket of products” so that standby power levels can be measured and tracked for a range of countries around the world. A “basket” can be measured by any interested parties to compare trends in standby power within that country and across countries. Many of these products will be global commodities with small differences in standby power levels (some may be due to voltage and frequency effects). However, some products may be subject to regional differences as a result of local standby programs or other influences.

By pooling collected data, it will be possible to undertaken comparisons by country and region. Eventually, the data collected will also provide trends in standby power by product type over time so that the rate of improvement or deterioration can be quantified within and between markets as well as by product type and even brand.

More detail on the project is set out in the project discussion paper Draft Basket of Products Approach to tracking global standby power trends, including the products to cover and the general approach.

If you wish to participate in this project, please review the participants guide which sets out the steps you have to take, the support you will receive and the expectations with respect to sharing of data. If you wish to proceed, please email us at energyrating@climatechange.gov.au to express your interest and obtain the support materials. It will be important to keep participants informed of updates to the survey instrument to enable consistent data gathering, so a register of participants will be essential.

Pooled Standby Data

This web site contains historical data collected primarily through a series of store surveys commissioned by E3 over recent years. Eventually a range of international data collected under the “basket of products” project will also be posted in this database. The surveys have been conducted where household appliances are physically measured to determine their power consumption while in various low power modes such as “standby” &/or “off”. These surveys involve plugging each target appliance into a portable power meter and measuring the applicable low power modes and recording the data. Other details, including brand, model and other characteristics of interest are recorded as well. Appliances in several stores have been surveyed for the past number of years, enabling a comprehensive data set to be compiled.

Access to the Data

Access to the data is provided under a range of conditions. Acceptance of these conditions is a prerequisite for access to the data.

To gain access to the standby data, you must agree to provide your details to be a registered user. Registration is free and your user details will remain confidential. Once you apply, an email will be sent to the email address you supply confirming that your application for a user name and password has been submitted. Confirmation that the user name is active will be forwarded by email, usually within 3 working days.

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Details of the Data Set

The current data set includes a total of 10 separate surveys conducted over the period 2001 to mid 2006. Data for 5,239 appliances is contained in the database. The data available for download was last updated in October 2006.

Manufacturers, governments or other organisations are invited to provide additional data for inclusion in the database. Please email www.energyrating.gov.au if you believe any reported data is inaccurate or if you can provide further data suitable for inclusion in the database. A description of the modes and the modes collected for each product type are set out in the background.

The data set identifies the data source for each record, which is either store survey, or manufacturer supplied or other source.

Copyright © Commonwealth of Australia This work is copyright. Permission is given for fair dealing with this material as permitted under copyright legislation, including for the purposes of private study and research. Apart from those uses, no part may be reproduced without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction rights should be directed to the Commonwealth as per the Contact Details below.

Contact Details:

The Manager, Communications
Appliance Energy Efficiency Team
Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
GPO Box 854,
Canberra City ACT 2601.