Ecodesign for energy using products is a big issue for electrical appliances and home
electronics these days. You would be amazed at how many things in your home are still drawing expensive electrical power when you think they are turned off.
Once upon a time, stoves, toaster, dishwashers, washers and dryers all had simple rotary knobs or pop down handles to turn them on. Televisions and radios had rotary volume controls that clicked on the end to turn them on or off. In those days, nothing drew power when it was off. Then entered the remote controlled age where everything had a microprocessor brain to control it. Unfortunately, it takes some power to run that micro and associated IR pickup. Your modern dishwasher, stove, microwave and washer have push button control now instead of ratchety knobs. Every one of these devices typically draws 3-10 watts when it appears to be "off". Now enter all the little plug in power supplies (nicknamed wallwarts) that charge your cellphone, MP3 player, digital camera, etc. They all draw 1-5 watts even when the device they power or charge isn't plugged in to them. If you add up EVERYTHING you may discover up to several hundred watts of continuous energy being used, for the sake of convenience (or careless design engineering). In hotter weather, you may be using air conditioning to remove the heat created by all these devices, adding even more energy use to the problem. In the winter, though, the extra standby energy may help heat your home but as inefficiently as a baseboard heater and not necessarily in the rooms that need it or at the times you need it.
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The European Union recognized the issue of limited energy resources and started the Ecodesign Directive in 2005. They have been very busy measuring all things electrical and coming up with realistic guidelines for appliance and electronics manufacturers. Here is a link part way into their site that lets you see the assorted directives:
It's a bit technical unless you are an engineer so I'll try to summarize. By January 2010, all devices that qualify, must draw less than 1 watt in standby. By January 2013 all those same devices must draw less that 0.5 watts in standby. What disqualifies a product such that it doesn't have to comply? If lowering standby power in the design causes the product to be uncompetitive on the market, or raises it's cost a large percent, or if it causes a loss of functionality that it already had (leaving off IR pickup for instance), it is exempt from the law. That doesn't mean that having a touch panel to control something or an infrared remote immediately creates an exemption. If state of the art design methods exist to let you meet the requirement, you are expected to comply. Also a genuine AC power switch on the front panel can count, in some cases, as the means to pass this law. It remains to be seen how different manufacturers interpret the exemption rules. What you can be sure of is that the manufacturers that comply WILL flaunt the fact and make it a feature bullet, which will compel other manufacturers to comply. Also global manufacturers do not want radically different models for different markets, so if Europe mandates low standby power, then the US and Asia markets will get it to.
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California has also created their own standby power law. It is broad ranging and includes not just standby power but average light bulb efficiencies, commercial refrigeration efficiency, etc. The full regulation document may be downloaded here:
2009 Appliance Efficiency Regulations
New televisions in California, as of January 1, 2006, must draw less than 2W, DVD players less than 3W. Their test methods use the EC method and directly refer to the EC testing method standard. For "wallwarts" built after Jan 1, 2007, the standby power must be less than 0.5W for supplies under 10W rating and standby power of less than 0.75W for supplies rated 10W to 250W. There is a Phase II in the works for Appliance Efficiency Regulations for California. In my opinion, they may tighten requirements to match Europe.
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What about that Energy Star logo that we see on new appliances and electronics?
Energy Star is a federal government program started in 1992 to promote more energy efficient appliances and electronics. It is not legally mandated, but voluntary. The hope is that the use of the Energy Star logo will be a compelling must-have feature to stay competitive so that it will be readily adopted on it's own. My take is that it took European and California legislation for standby power limits to push this along. The V2.0 Energy Star standard for Audio Video equipment includes advanced features such as mandatory auto-power down if a device is not used for 30 minutes. The sleep mode (sleep is sometimes used in place of standby for the non playing but wakeable mode for an electronic device - typically the display is limited in this case to one LED) power limit is 1W. There is also power consumption limits for ON modes in v2.0 such as 15W for BluRay players, 5W for DVD or CD players and 1.5W for network routers. The effectivity date on v2.0 is June 30, 2010.
Energy Star is no longer available after December 31, 2010 for external power adaptors (wallwarts) because the market transformation has been achieved, according to the EPA. They estimate 2.7 billion walwarts are owned by Americans, 9 per person average (I'm definitely skewing that average up). Here is the EPA press release: EPA press release
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In summary, this is an actively changing legislative hot button and needs to be followed closely, certainly if you are a consumer buying new appliances or a design engineer. If you would like to explore what your current appliances draw in standby or in operation, read my review on the Kill A Watt consumer wattmeter. It's affordable by almost everyone and works quite well for this.