Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Post your enmax bill... My electricity bill is thorugh the roof!

Bob · 06-19-2008, 12:23 PM

A typical Dell PC consumes between 50-100 watts when idle (not sleeping), so 3 24/7 PCs (avg 75 watts each) will run you about 162 kWh or about $11.34 per month@ 7c / kWh. Of course, you also have to account for all the extra "fees" by applying the Enmax "Screw you customer!" multiplier of 1.8 (that's what I remember calculating a few months ago, but it's probably different from person to person) to get to a more reasonable estimate: ~$20 per month. If your PCs are truely idle then you can implement S3 standby with your computers and cut power consumption to next to nothing. My PC uses ~5-8 watts while in S3, and resumes in about 2 seconds (using Vista-64).

Laptops will of course use much less, and gaming PCs and servers can be dramatically higher. Plasma TVs power usage varies with scene brightness, but some of the more recent models use in excess of 600 watts at full brightness.

I'm extremely frugal with my electricity consumption: in May my natural gas bill alone was 3x the cost of my electricity--all that rain made me want to run the fireplace often. Virtually all the lights in my house are CFL (13 watts from Costco for $1.25 each), I unplug my TV and all it's accessories (Xbox, reciever, etc) when not in use by using a simple power bar (I don't watch much TV these days, so it helps), and virtually everything else is unplugged or off when I'm not using it. My laptop is asleep for most of the day, and doesn't use much power when it's on. The only constant power draw I have is my network gear (digital phone, cable modem, wireless router, and switch) sitting in the basement, which amounts to ~25 watts most of the time.

Based on some calculations I did when I moved into my house, I estimated that a Watt-year (1 W of power usage for an entire year) from Enmax @ 7c / kWh (including all BS fees) cost me ~$1.65, so everything I do with regards to power consumption gets compared against this value. That value seems a little high now, so maybe I should recalculate or I'm not remembering correctly. My typical power bill is, IIRC, ~$30-40 / month, and that's in a 1400 sq. ft. home. If it watch a lot of TV (say, during the playoffs), it'll go up a bit more because I have a plasma TV which sucks a fair bit of power.

06-19-2008, 12:23 PM	#18
Bob Franchise Player Join Date: Jan 2007 Exp:	A typical Dell PC consumes between 50-100 watts when idle (not sleeping), so 3 24/7 PCs (avg 75 watts each) will run you about 162 kWh or about $11.34 per month@ 7c / kWh. Of course, you also have to account for all the extra "fees" by applying the Enmax "Screw you customer!" multiplier of 1.8 (that's what I remember calculating a few months ago, but it's probably different from person to person) to get to a more reasonable estimate: ~$20 per month. If your PCs are truely idle then you can implement S3 standby with your computers and cut power consumption to next to nothing. My PC uses ~5-8 watts while in S3, and resumes in about 2 seconds (using Vista-64). Laptops will of course use much less, and gaming PCs and servers can be dramatically higher. Plasma TVs power usage varies with scene brightness, but some of the more recent models use in excess of 600 watts at full brightness. I'm extremely frugal with my electricity consumption: in May my natural gas bill alone was 3x the cost of my electricity--all that rain made me want to run the fireplace often. Virtually all the lights in my house are CFL (13 watts from Costco for $1.25 each), I unplug my TV and all it's accessories (Xbox, reciever, etc) when not in use by using a simple power bar (I don't watch much TV these days, so it helps), and virtually everything else is unplugged or off when I'm not using it. My laptop is asleep for most of the day, and doesn't use much power when it's on. The only constant power draw I have is my network gear (digital phone, cable modem, wireless router, and switch) sitting in the basement, which amounts to ~25 watts most of the time. Based on some calculations I did when I moved into my house, I estimated that a Watt-year (1 W of power usage for an entire year) from Enmax @ 7c / kWh (including all BS fees) cost me ~$1.65, so everything I do with regards to power consumption gets compared against this value. That value seems a little high now, so maybe I should recalculate or I'm not remembering correctly. My typical power bill is, IIRC, ~$30-40 / month, and that's in a 1400 sq. ft. home. If it watch a lot of TV (say, during the playoffs), it'll go up a bit more because I have a plasma TV which sucks a fair bit of power. Last edited by Bob; 06-19-2008 at 12:26 PM.