Many students using our footprint calculator said that they could not pledge to reduce their home footprints because they were not making the decisions for the household. Here is your chance to design your own sustainable virtual household!
If you had your own home, what would you do to make it more energy efficient? Where would you get your electricity from? Where would your house be? Would you live near to your school or work or local transit options? Where would you get your food from?
MY Family Footprint >
Smart Power Strips
If I could plan the energy efficiency of my own home, I would install solar panels and a gray water system, but I would also invest in smart power strips. Normal power strips are useful because you can power multiple devices at a time, in addition, you can disconnect those devices from the electricity supply when the power cord is shut off. In completely detaching the devices from their energy source, less energy is wasted in “sleep” or “stand-by” mode. According to Energy Star (link below), “It is estimated that standby power accounts for more than 100 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of annual U.S. electricity consumption”. Saving energy decreases the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Smart power strips are more useful than normal power strips because they turn off automatically, while normal power strips need to be turned off manually which leaves more opportunity for accidental energy waste. Energy Star describes three different types of smart power strips including timer-equipped power strips, occupancy sensing power strips, and current sens ing power strips. Of those, I would choose to buy the current sensing power strips because they shut off power as soon as the device slips into “sleep” mode wasting the least possible amount of energy.