While I’ve been working at my Syracuse office, I decided to plug all my desk appliances into a Kill-a-Watt meter and see how much power they use. I was surprised in a week it turned out I used over 4 kilowatt hours of power in a week. I would have never thought I used that much power, although with my phone charging, the laptop and monitor plugged in, various USB desk accessories and other equipment it all adds up to about 45 watt draw.

Which doesn’t seem like much, but I’m in the office 12 plus hours many days, seven days a week, and those miserly 45 watts add up quickly. That’s 540 watt hours a day or 3.7 kWh a week — but then again sometimes I draw more power and sometimes I’m there more then 12 hours a day.

Hooked to the grid, 3.7 kWh of power works out to maybe 40 cents a week worth of power. Which granted I am sure my employer can afford with all the other expenses. Grid power is cheap, it’s virtually unlimited. But it’s still a lot of power, that has to be made by burning coal and natural gas, and it’s something I will think about when I’m back home — unplugging things as much as possible and not using the big screen monitor as much.  And certainly when I have an off-grid cabin, I won’t be able to use the laptop 12 hours a day — but outside of a work environment, I doubt I would want to do that.