Energy burden of the new ICE age

The consumer love affair with gadgets and gizmos is costing households up to £130 a year in electricity costs.

This is the figure from the Energy Saving Trust's (EST) latest environmental report, The Ampere Strikes Back, on the spread of home entertainment equipment and other electrical devices.

The Trust warned this increased use is not only costing consumers but is helping fuel environmental problems and will continue to seriously undermine efforts to manage domestic energy demand.

These devices will consumer so much energy that by 2020 they will account for 45 per cent of a UK household's electricity costs. The Trust also warned although we don't realise this, the latest devices, far from being energy efficient, consume more electricity than older models.

For example flat screen plasma TVs use three times more electricty than the old cathode ray televisions; DAB radios use seven times the power of conventional radios. Even more worrrying is that even when turned off, if still plugged in many gadgets, such as mobile phone chargers, continue to consumer power.

"Currently the annual UK spend on consumer electronics and home IT equipment has soared to over £12bn, making [us] the biggest spenders in Europe. By 2020, according to current predictions, these products contained in the average [UK] home could be racking up running costs of over £4bn a year," said the report.

This equates to around £170 per household per year just for these devices and excluding other domestic gadgets such as white goods.

Calling it the dawn of a new "ICE (Information, Communication, and Entertainment) Age", the environmental trust said it was not only the number of products we buy but the way we use these.

The Trust said it was "the unintentional misuse" of these gadgets; for example devices left on when not in use, or on standby for long periods when not in use that when combined with the impact of the equipment in use, will lead to the environmental and financial costs spiralling out of control.

"We have so many different devices that consumers tend to forget what they’ve left on. But while owners’ backs are turned, gadgets such as televisions, computers, set top boxes and mobile phone chargers etc suck up energy."

Although some devices, such as set-top boxes do need to be left on in standby and the industry says hibernation or standby modes are better than nothing, the Trust has urged a rethink of designs.

It has also urged consumers to look for energy saving appliances which are becoming more readily available.