Billions of linked-in electronic devices worldwide are wasting enough electricity to power 80 per cent of Canada’s needs, says a new report.

And the power wasted by appliances on standby is set to soar higher, says the International Energy Agency.

It points the finger at the increasing demand for devices that can be connected to networks so they’re accessible from anywhere and appliances that are always ready to click into action without a warm-up.

Consider, for example, the little cable box on your TV (The U.S. alone has 160 million of these devices):

“Despite being in ‘standby mode,’ all of these boxes drew their full fill of electricity all the time, regardless of whether or not anyone was watching TV or recording a broadcast,” says the report.

Another issue: Many household appliances are being hooked into communication networks, so that consumers can use their smartphones to turn on the coffee maker before they get home.

The downside: That means the devices must always be in standby mode, never really turned off.

And standby, the report says, is a misleading term: Many devices use almost as much power on standby as they do when they’re actively functioning.

“Currently, the estimate for global electricity wasted in this way by network-enabled devices is 400 terawatt hours per year,” says the report.

That’s a lot: Canada used about 518 terawatt hours a year of electricity in 2013, according to the Canadian Electricity Association. (One terawatt hour is one billion kilowatt hours.)

The waste will get worse, says the IEA.

In 2013, the world had about 14 billion “network-enabled devices,” but the number is set to grow:

“The uptake of network-enabled devices, which being in ‘network standby’ mode are ‘always on,’ is projected to expand exponentially, possibly reaching 50 billion by 2020, rising towards 100 billion by 2030 and 500 billion over the following decades,” it says.

“As the range of network-enabled devices expands, individuals and societies benefit from faster access to multiple types of data and services; however, being ‘connected’ is causing associated global electricity demand to grow at an alarming rate.”

Some of the wasted power is from unneeded add-ons, says the report. For example, almost all microwave ovens have clocks:

“Heating food requires 100 times more power than running the clock. But a microwave is typically ‘on’ as an oven only one per cent of the time; over its lifetime, far more energy is used to run the clock display than to cook food.”

A second cause of energy waste was the move to connect so many devices, such as appliances and lighting systems, to communication networks. Being connected means the equipment can never truly shut down.

The report says there are ways to curb the energy waste.

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The IEA has said government should set standards requiring appliances to draw no more than one watt of power while in standby mode.

That’s the standard required in Canada for appliances to qualify for Energy Star rating.

Canada also introduced minimum standards for audio, video and TV systems in 2012.

The need now is to extend energy conservation standards to all network-connected devices, says the report.

That will take co-operation among manufacturers, software developers, governments and standards organizations.

Consumers need to play their part, too, the report stresses.

They’ve so far shown little interest in the issue, at home or at work.

“In an office context, surveys have found that computers are on average left unattended and switched on 28 per cent of the time, corresponding to an average wasted energy of 110 kilowatt hours per year, per computer.”

Consumers pay for the power, it says. And energy companies have to generate enough power to meet the new demand. Globally in 2013, network-enabled devices consumed about 616 terawatt hours of electricity, according to the agency.

The report says that better policies and technology could substantially reduce the waste, which is set to almost double by 2025 if nothing is done.

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