§ Norman BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the annual level of carbon emissions resulting from electrical appliances being left in standby mode. [156342]
§ Mr. MorleyThe estimate of the Government's Market Transformation Programme is that consumer electronics, home computing equipment, domestic cooking equipment and office equipment left in stand-by mode accounted for approximately 600,000 tonnes of carbon (6.4TWh) in the UK in 2002.
There is further energy consumption, for which we do not have firm estimates at present, from washing machines, dishwashers and other white goods which have a stand-by mode; from consumer electronic equipment using an external power supply that continues to consume energy when plugged in but not in use; and from domestic personal computer equipment where the stand-by facilities are not properly enabled. Taken together, these sources of consumption may bring the overall figure to around one million tonnes of carbon.
In order to try to tackle this problem the Market Transformation Programme (www.mtprog.com) has been encouraging manufacturers to reduce both the "on" and the stand-by power consumption of household appliances through the adoption of design improvements, voluntary codes of conduct, and best practice guidelines and targets. This approach has been fairly successful in respect of televisions: an EU-wide voluntary agreement will mean that the majority of new televisions sold in the UK will soon consume around 1 watt of power in stand-by mode rather than the 3–8 watts consumed by older models. We expect this agreement to be extended to cover DVD players shortly.
158WA similar agreement for external power supplies aims to encourage new power supplies consuming around half a watt in stand-by mode compared to the present average of just over 2 watts.
In addition, the Government's initiative on sustainable procurement, announced last autumn, includes a requirement for government departments which purchase computers and televisions to specify low stand-by power requirements.