Standby Power Management for a Greenhouse Effect Reduction

Most of the household appliances and electronic office equipment commercially available today have low-power, sleep, idle or standby modes. The energy consumed by devices in these operating modes is usually small and neglected by users however, considering the multitude of such devices per household / office, over large areas (countries and continents) and for long time periods (months and years), these small energy losses add up to impressive amounts of wasted energy and large-scale pollution. A study conducted over a two-year period concluded that in the European Union about 43 TWh of standby electric energy are consumed in total per year and this generates about 19 million tonnes of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. In this context it becomes necessary to take further actions to reduce the standby energy consumption and environmental pollution. This paper proposes one of the most affordable autonomous smart plug designs that is up to three times more energy-efficient than other similar smart plugs commercially available on the market.