Standby power is the electricity devices draw while switched off but still plugged in, sitting ready to spring to life. It is real, and across a houseful of gadgets it adds up to a noticeable yearly sum. It is also widely exaggerated and, worse, misdirected: people unplug phone chargers that cost pennies while ignoring the set-top box quietly burning ten watts around the clock. Knowing which devices actually matter saves you both money and the daily faff of chasing trivial savings. This guide gives you the real numbers and a plan that gets nearly all the saving for almost none of the bother.
The short answer. Each device on standby sips only a few watts, but a typical home has dozens, and a few watts running every hour of every year quietly accumulates to roughly £30 to £80 a year. It will never rival heating or the tumble dryer, so keep it in proportion. The worst offenders are set-top boxes, games consoles and old equipment with transformers; the pointless targets are phone chargers and most modern low-standby electronics. Put the worst clusters on a switched extension lead and forget the rest.
How much standby actually costs
A single device on standby draws somewhere between half a watt and ten or more watts depending on what it is. That sounds trivial, and per device it is. The catch is that it runs continuously, 8,760 hours a year, and a modern home has dozens of them.
The maths for any always-on device is the same: watts times hours per year, divided by 1,000, times the unit rate. Here is what different standby draws cost over a year at the current rate.
| Standby draw | kWh per year | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5W (modern low-standby device) | 4.4 kWh | £1.14 |
| 2W (typical small electronics) | 17.5 kWh | £4.58 |
| 5W (older or active standby) | 43.8 kWh | £11.43 |
| 10W (set-top box, recorder) | 87.6 kWh | £22.87 |
| 15W (games console, connected standby) | 131.4 kWh | £34.31 |
At 26.11p/kWh electricity, Ofgem cap July to September 2026. Standby draws vary widely between models. Worked examples; measure your own with a monitor.
Add up a household's worth and the always-on standby load typically lands somewhere between £30 and £80 a year. Real money for very little effort, but it will never rival the heating bill or the tumble dryer, so keep it firmly in proportion and do not let the chase for a few pence eat an evening. This is the classic quick win under a tenner, not a transformative saving.
The worst offenders
Not all standby is equal. The difference between a device that costs you £30 a year and one that costs 50p is whether it is truly asleep or still half awake. The expensive ones are those that stay genuinely active.
- Set-top boxes and digital recorders. These often keep listening, downloading programme guides, or recording, so their standby is barely lower than their on state. Frequently the biggest single offender in the house.
- Games consoles in connected standby. Left in rest or instant-on mode they stay reachable for downloads and updates, drawing ten watts or more around the clock. Switching to full power-off when not in use cuts this to almost nothing.
- Older equipment with transformers. Anything with a heavy mains adapter or an internal transformer can draw several watts even doing nothing, because the transformer is always energised.
- Anything with a clock, display or instant-on feature. Microwaves, ovens, AV receivers and the like keep a bright display lit and a circuit live all day for the sake of showing the time.
A plug-in energy monitor reveals these in seconds, and the readings are often surprising. It is the single best £15 you can spend to find out which devices in your own home are worth bothering with.
Where unplugging is pointless
The flip side is just as important, because effort spent on the wrong targets is wasted.
A phone charger left in the wall with nothing plugged into it draws so little, a fraction of a watt, that switching it off saves pennies a year. The persistent myth that an empty charger is a meaningful drain simply is not true of modern chargers. The same goes for most current low-standby electronics: LED-lit gadgets, modern TVs in true standby, laptop chargers when not charging. They are designed to sip almost nothing, by regulation.
Religiously crawling behind furniture every night to unplug these is effort spent for almost nothing, the very fussing-over-pennies this site warns against. It is also one of the most common energy saving myths. Leave the genuinely low-draw items alone and put your attention where it pays.
A sensible plan
The right approach is to target the worst offenders once, set it up so it takes no daily effort, and then stop thinking about it.
- Find the offenders. Spend ten minutes with a plug-in monitor checking the devices you suspect: the TV cluster, the consoles, the AV gear, anything with a transformer. Note which ones draw more than a couple of watts on standby.
- Cluster and switch. Put the television, console, and the nest of boxes around them on a single switched extension lead. Then one flick of one switch at night kills the whole lot. No crawling behind furniture.
- Choose true-off. On devices that offer a real power-off versus a standby, pick the true-off. On consoles, turn off rest mode or instant-on unless you genuinely rely on overnight downloads.
- Leave the trivia alone. Empty chargers, modern low-standby gadgets, anything you measured at under a watt. Not worth a moment.
That gets you nearly all the saving for almost none of the bother, which is the right trade every time. For the other always-on items, see whether to switch off your broadband router and the running cost of your television and entertainment gear.
Standby is not the same as always-on
It helps to separate two things people lump together. Standby is a device that is notionally off but still drawing power to stay ready: the TV waiting for the remote, the console in rest mode. Always-on is a device that is genuinely meant to run continuously and doing its job: the fridge-freezer, the broadband router, a heating timer. The first is waste you can reclaim; the second is not.
The always-on category is often where the bigger money actually sits, and it is worth measuring separately. A broadband router running all year, a fridge-freezer cycling around the clock, and a stack of AV gear add up to more than a houseful of true standby in many homes. The difference is that you cannot just switch them off, so the saving comes from choosing efficient kit and the right settings rather than pulling the plug.
When you go round with a monitor, label each reading in your head as one or the other. The standby items go on a switched lead. The always-on items get judged on whether they need to be on at all, and if they do, on how much they draw, which is a different question covered across the electricity hub.
What to leave on regardless
A few things should stay plugged in and powered, and it is worth being clear about them so you do not switch off something that matters.
Leave your broadband router on if anyone in the house relies on the connection overnight, or if it powers your phone line, alarm or smart-home kit. Rebooting it daily often causes more grief than the few pence it saves. Leave the fridge-freezer on, obviously, and never switch off anything keeping food cold, a freezer of frozen meals, or medical equipment. Smart meters, alarm systems, and anything with a battery that needs charging should stay live.
The point of targeting standby is to stop wasting electricity on devices doing nothing useful, not to inconvenience yourself or risk spoiling food to claw back a few pence. Switch off what is genuinely idle, and leave alone what is quietly earning its keep.