Googling, downloading, streaming, chatting, gaming and saving information are indispensable in our lives. But how much energy do we consume for all of this exactly? While power consumption in the household has steadily decreased in the last few years for large appliances and lighting, consumption by electronic office equipment and entertainment technology is increasing more and more. This proportion is already over 25% and is therefore the largest “energy guzzler” in the household budget. Always “on the net” has its price, and also has a clear impact on the climate.

Quelle: Bundesverband der Energie- und Wassewirtschaft e.V.

So use your possibilities to save electricity and emissions:

• For simple applications (such as surfing, e-mail, photos, videos), a notebook often suffices instead of a desktop computer. Economical notebooks consume much less power. The graphics card of many desktops alone requires up to 300W under full load.
• Turn off Wifi when not in use; this can be automated by timers in many routers.
• Use the computer power-saving option: in the system settings of the computer, set the device to go into sleep mode automatically after a given period of inactivity. Even better: switch it off entirely at the power strip.
• Turn off the screen saver: modern screens no longer allow images to “burn-in”. Screen savers only consume electricity unnecessarily.
• Use devices for a long time when possible: The production of a laptop consumes so much energy, that from an energy perspective it is never worth replacing, an old, still functional device with a new, energy efficient device.