Why turning off the lights is a waste of your time

[Simon]

turning off unused lights is worthwhile. I have to admit that I am guilty of leaving them on more than necessary partly because they are now low power partly because I can claim that I am generating the power for them anyway but this is not quite true as I generate with solar by day so while I save a little emissions by day I may create more by night as more carbon based generation will be running.

Whether or not it is worth turning them off at this point is slightly subjective. Yes if it becomes your constant focus you are worrying too much. but it also makes sense not to be wasteful. The grid as a whole has a fairly steady load and yes is reasonably predictable which is why prices at the same time of two consecutive days can be one 10 times the other because they are good at forecasting, know what to do and how much it will cost them.

Yes if we all try to not waste it does make a difference. We have made great strides in device efficiency such that for 20 years we stabilized demand against a growing population. Those easy gains made by the designers are now over and we are down to our own behaviours and other more forcibly reactive technologies like smart grids that will turn loads off automatically to protect the grid from failure.

In the UK each household has available about 2kW at any one time or 660W per person. That is why as shown in that youtube clip the turning on of millions of kettles after a TV program is a big deal, each kettle will use 2-3kW so 100-150% of that households average availability, either by chance other houses are not using as much or some extra power is found pretty damn quick. Let's not forget that while the missus may be watching corrie, her husband may be using some other power hungry device not mention the heating demand in winter.

[Nusa]

Just occurred to me that the 5 kW claim doesn't pass the smell test.

First, it's unlikely a residential rental room would have that much available. It would need to be spread among three 15 or 20A 120V circuits to avoid tripping breakers.

Second, if you were really dumping 5 kW of heat into one room continuously, you'd have to have open windows to avoid boiling.

So you're either deliberately exaggerating, or you're adding up power supply ratings and are ignorant of the fact they are almost never run anywhere near full power.

[MK14]

or you're adding up power supply ratings and are ignorant of the fact they are almost never run anywhere near full power.

If it has dual power supplies, and only uses (at max), half the maximum power output, of just one power supply (over-rated for long life expectancy and reliability). Then they could be confused, by the fact they have a pair of (perhaps) 300 watt power supplies, in each server.
So, 300W x 2 (dual) x 8 (servers) = 4,800 Watts.
Which is just the maximum capacity of all the supplies. But the real power consumption, could be, more like a killowatt, or so.

As you suggested, 5KW would rapidly make a small (typical students room), like a sauna.

[Siwastaja]

Just occurred to me that the 5 kW claim doesn't pass the smell test.

Of course. 5kW is the heating power I need to keep the whole house (two stairs) at +21degC when it's -20degC outside. (Obviously, with decent insulation for the climate.) In a single room, even during heating season, that would mean keeping the windows all open. Obviously it's bogus, like some nominal maximum rating of the power supplies summed up or similar.

Especially in warmer climates, instead of calculating Pi at COP=1.0, use an air source heat pump for heating and forget the Pi. It has been calculated to enough decimal places already by others.

[BrianHG]

We are ignoring this guy might be a crypto miner.  Then his servers will consume full power all time.
Then again, if he was, he would be minimizing power losses by shutting off the damn lights when not in use.

[Gyro]

We are ignoring this guy might be a crypto miner....

He certainly shows the environmental consciousness of one!

[MK14]

We are ignoring this guy might be a crypto miner.  Then his servers will consume full power all time.
Then again, if he was, he would be minimizing power losses by shutting off the damn lights when not in use.

I ruled that option out, as they seem to think it is a bad idea investing computation/money in it.

Crypto is a mania I predict a complete collapse this year.

[Ground_Loop]

Wow, a non conformist not doing everything possible to save humanity from scourge of energy waste while living in Berkeley.  I escaped decades ago to a carbon footprint friendly environment.  You must have a hard existence there.  Get out while you can.

[tszaboo]

I have to somewhat agree. There is always someone who turns off the CCFL light in the company restroom. Takes 15 seconds to turn on, otherwise you are blind. And it is CCFL, so every time you turn it on, it dies a bit. I could probably make a small TED talk about how this is stupid, but whatever.

[nth_degree]

Double this plus some K80s. yea its pretty cozy in here. yea I use 4 dual sockets to spread the load

[MK14]

You could be burning up more money in electricity, than the rent you pay.

[nth_degree]

It's like being warmed by the fires of hell

[MK14]

It's like being warmed by the fires of hell

Somehow, that doesn't seem to add up.

[nth_degree]

Check this out https://qst.darkfactor.org/

One of the questions is;

I would like to make some people suffer, even if it meant that I would go to hell with them.

[Zero999]

Note: Fluorescents were a different story. The energy cost of starting them is much higher than the cost of running them, so there was a legitimate energy argument for not turning them on and off too frequently. They're obsolete technology now. Those still in use will be replaced as they fail, if not sooner.

That's not true at all. Regardless of whether a fluorescent lamp has an inductive, or electronic ballast, the extra starting power is negligible. The main issue with turning fluorescent lamps on/off repeatedly is it can shorten the life of the tube and it takes awhile for them to warm up.

Just occurred to me that the 5 kW claim doesn't pass the smell test.

Of course. 5kW is the heating power I need to keep the whole house (two stairs) at +21degC when it's -20degC outside. (Obviously, with decent insulation for the climate.) In a single room, even during heating season, that would mean keeping the windows all open. Obviously it's bogus, like some nominal maximum rating of the power supplies summed up or similar.

Especially in warmer climates, instead of calculating Pi at COP=1.0, use an air source heat pump for heating and forget the Pi. It has been calculated to enough decimal places already by others.

Unless the electrical power is mostly renewable, he'd be better off using natural gas for heating, rather than resistive heating!

[Bicurico]

From an economical and environmental point of view, I would say the roommate is corect. Switching off all electric devices when they are not needed, saves energy, saves the environment and results in a lower energy bill.

Most consumer electronics are perfectly able to withstand many switching cycles and there are probably few devices where an increased reduction of lifetime is noticable, mainly due to heat/cooling cycles.

All of this seems to have been discussed in this thread.

However, there is one aspect that I have not seen being discussed (but then, I only read this thread superficially, maybe I missed it): "quality of life".

Not everything in life has to be optimized! It gives pleasure and comfort to enter a room which is lighted. Same goes with having a radio switched on even if you are not actively listening to it. There are many more examples.

I moved from a period of my life, where i switched everything off (using the switch on the socket strip to physically disconnect everything like TV, STB, consoles, etc.) to the current state, where I leave everything switched on or in standby. My main computer is switched on 24/7 - this way I don't have to boot it up when I need to use it and I can remote access every time I need it.

I may be paying 100 Euro more per year, but heck, it is totally worth it.

My wife likes to have the night stand light in the bedrooms switched on at night before going to bed, even with nobody in the room. It used to annoy me, but nowadays I actually understand the warmth of going into the bedroom and there is light.

Am I bad person for "wasting" energy? Well, I don't think so: I try to spend less in fuel and why is my behaviour worse than another person heating the house to 21ºC in the winter, crypto-mining or playing Xbox or Playstation (which is totally useless from a biological point of view and only serves to waste energy).

Conclusion: If you want to speak with your roommate and if he is really annoying you, you can try to explain him that having the lights on means comfort to you and it is worth the extra money spent in the electrical bill. You may then negotiate if he is willing to pay for half of the excess money (perhaps in compensation for his habits that cost you money). Otherwise, offer to pay the excess energy bill yourself.

But don't use physics to argue for something that will simply not be true.

Regards,
Vitor

[Simon]

I have to somewhat agree. There is always someone who turns off the CCFL light in the company restroom. Takes 15 seconds to turn on, otherwise you are blind. And it is CCFL, so every time you turn it on, it dies a bit. I could probably make a small TED talk about how this is stupid, but whatever.

I used to turn CFL's on and off all the time, never had them die particularly quickly. Thankfully all LED now and white. I remember people leaving PC's turned on because apparently it was better than constantly thermal shocking them - there may be some tiny truth there, but so tiny against all the other reality that it becomes a lie....

[Alti]

Thank you for starting this topic. IMHO this is a valid question.
Is there any benefit in switching off lights nowadays?

It is true that times change, incandescent is being phased out, fluorescent took its place and now LED is anticipated to dominate the market. However, the lighting control process did not change much. This still involves producing power, distribution, switching loads ON/OFF, maintaining bulbs(manufacturing, distribution, replacing, cleaning, recycling) etc. Just the parameters march in time, and so does the "beneficial" behaviour.

So, after defining what "benefit" is, what are the actual gains and losses, this process can be characterised and objective answer can be given.

In case of OP the answer is quite simple since benefit involves only the negative factors of work and planning needed to click on the light switches, fights with professor, the discomfort when there is not enough light to pass the corridor, the need for bulb replacement. There is no energy cost involved in his "benefit" concept. This is quite a special case but only under these conditions described the question posed can be answered.

Of course I cannot show you a precise mathematical model of lighting environment but I can give some guidelines how to build it and understand if these behaviours are beneficial or not.

1. When considering the "benefit" model, imagine that you are not a unique person and there are millions (of clones) around with similar behaviour, who start kettle at the same time as you do. Don't count 5W bulb but X millions of 5W bulbs. All of them click ON/OFF straining input caps, there are M factories that constantly spill out bulbs to supply them, N processing plants that recycle worn-out LEDs, P electricians running around and fixing worn out switches, etc.

2. The switching ON or OFF the light comes at a price. This is mostly inconvenience, cost of accidents that happen because of darkness, but also some fixed cost of the necessity of including gazillions of switches and wiring and maintaining this additional part. Keep in mind this is not how street lighting is managed - it is turned on once and turned off once, per day.

3. It is clear that varying the efficacy of light, at some point of development, with other factors fixed, it is less and less "beneficial" to tightly control the energy used by the bulbs.

Can anyone link some papers that describe the "benefit" process? I'd be interested to analyse some coarse approximation with 3-4 parameters. The real world process is of course very complicated, that is obvious I hope. But it does exist, same as "beneficial" behaviour.

[Simon]

2. The switching ON or OFF the light comes at a price. This is mostly inconvenience, cost of accidents that happen because of darkness, but also some fixed cost of the necessity of including gazillions of switches and wiring and maintaining this additional part. Keep in mind this is not how street lighting is managed - it is turned on once and turned off once, per day.

Just think about it, how can you control street lights? I guess now that they are LED they can be turned on quickly. My local council tried to save money by halving the amount of lights, now the streets are poorly lit. You could use some sort of motion sensing but this would become rather complex. It works for my driveway floodlight so instead of running 10W all night it comes on for less than 1 hour although every cat triggers it too.

[mcz]

What about the amount of power the industry uses compared to the "public civilian sector"  I bet its more than 1000x more power usage,  but I'm only guessing.

I don't want to hijack this nice troll thread but this guess could not be further from the truth.

While I don't live in the US, my country also has still a bit of industry left and the total energy usage when you compary industry and private households is about the same.
If you just compare the electrical energy usage it will end up at a (very roughly) 2:1 ratio. So industry only using twice the amount of electrical energy compared to private homes.



In this more or less recent image the central pie chart is the important one. It's in german but the translations are:
Verkehr -> traffic
Industrie -> industry
Gewerbe, Handel und Diensleistungen -> commercial stuff (but not industrial stuff)
Haushalte -> private households

If you want to use google translate you can actually figure out how much of which energy source each sector uses (the 4 surrounding pie charts)


cheers

[Simon]

efficiencies are being made all round. Factory lighting is being swapped to LED and there is with LED more of a chance that light sensing lights will be used that will turn on and off automatically. For example my last place had transparent sections in the factory roof such that in the summer lights were not needed but as the factory floor manager did not like to spend money he did not have the automatic lights installed. Instead he went around manually turning them off to cut his running costs and make his bonus bigger.

[Simon]

One of the members here works at a wind tunnel that uses 4MW at full output, that is just one facility using 0.01% of all of the power used on average in the UK.

[tszaboo]

I have to somewhat agree. There is always someone who turns off the CCFL light in the company restroom. Takes 15 seconds to turn on, otherwise you are blind. And it is CCFL, so every time you turn it on, it dies a bit. I could probably make a small TED talk about how this is stupid, but whatever.

I used to turn CFL's on and off all the time, never had them die particularly quickly. Thankfully all LED now and white. I remember people leaving PC's turned on because apparently it was better than constantly thermal shocking them - there may be some tiny truth there, but so tiny against all the other reality that it becomes a lie....

https://www.lightingdesignlab.com/resources/articles/articles-lighting-fundamentals/should-i-turn-fluorescent-lights-when-leaving-room

"Every time a fluorescent light is turned on, a tiny amount of the coating on the electrodes is burned off. Eventually, enough coating is burned off, and the lamp fails to start. Most full-size fluorescent lamps are rated to last 20,000 hours when left on for 3 hours every time they are turned on. This means that the lamp has roughly 6,667 starts available to use up. (20,000/3 = 6,667)"
But honestly, just calculate how much time is wasted, by people waiting for the lights to turn on, then be blinded by the blinky-blinky. For a corporate setting, having that extra dozens of watts is nothing.
That being said, I usually turn off lights in unused room. I also keep it on in corridors at home, they are on a timer, because not seeing enough is just a safety danger.

2. The switching ON or OFF the light comes at a price. This is mostly inconvenience, cost of accidents that happen because of darkness, but also some fixed cost of the necessity of including gazillions of switches and wiring and maintaining this additional part. Keep in mind this is not how street lighting is managed - it is turned on once and turned off once, per day.

Just think about it, how can you control street lights? I guess now that they are LED they can be turned on quickly. My local council tried to save money by halving the amount of lights, now the streets are poorly lit. You could use some sort of motion sensing but this would become rather complex. It works for my driveway floodlight so instead of running 10W all night it comes on for less than 1 hour although every cat triggers it too.

They had a test run of this near where I was living. Motion sensors to turn on street lighting for cars and pedestrians. It was miserable to drive that way, the system never worked as it should.

[bson]

I habitually turn off lights when I leave a room; there is no waste of time since it doesn't take any.  It also doesn't really matter with LED lighting, but back when we used bulbs if they weren't turned off you could easily end up with 10-15 75W bulbs burning around the clock around the house.  750W+ for 24 hours, 30 days a month will add up.  Most lighting was also not frequently used - things like attic, storage, garage, and so on so not much wear from thermal cycling.  These days those areas of course have LED lighting on motion sensors.  I grew up poor, so there wasn't money to waste on things that provided zero utility or benefit.

But it's totally just a habit these days.  Just like I always wash my hands after going to the bathroom, before handling food, or after coming in from outside.  I don't even think about it.  The pre-frontal cortex isn't active and I usually don't even remember it.

[Simon]

When I swapped my home lights from CFL to LED I took the old CFL's into work and swapped out the 4 100W incandescent's in the office toilets for them. I just could not believe it when I took the bulbs down and read on them that they were 100W. So 400Wh were running about 9 hours a day or 3.6kWh was being used a day for lights that were actually of used for about 1 hour a day. They then had all the lights changed to LED and  motion sensor lights were put in.

But no one in particular was paying for that power so no one cared. In my simple act of recycling I saved 3.2kWh a day!