Necessity is the Mother of Invention

January 20, 2012 - That old saying is proving to be true once again. In this case, the necessity is to address the energy being used by products when they are in standby or off mode. To do this, people are coming up with all sorts of unique approaches.

One innovation that recently caught my eye is the "popping socket," featured in the CNET article: To save energy, popping socket unplugs plugs. The idea here is for a wall outlet that ejects plugs when electrical devices go unused for a period of time.

While novel ideas like the popping socket are intriguing, it's worth noting that electrical engineers have made tremendous strides in recent years to reduce the power consumption of their products in standby and off mode.

For example, the introduction of IC controllers has reduced the no-load power consumption from 1 W or more to less than 100 mW in many new products. In some cases, reduction is down to below 10 mW, even approaching "zero" watts.

Such technology is now widely used in products like televisions, white goods, displays, printers, and DVD players and has been a big factor in the success of programs like ENERGY STAR and the European Commission's ErP Ecodesign Directive. By the end of 2011, Power Integrations ICs alone saved consumers over five billion dollars on their electricity bills.

It's good that inventors are out there working on new ways of saving energy. "Popping sockets" gets the job done and is a fun way to highlight the importance of reducing standby waste. However I'm hoping that clever and efficient circuit designs will become the norm and we'll avoid the obviously less convenient mechanical option.