The internet says 100W idle, so maybe more like $40-50 electricity, depending on where you live could be cheaper could be more expensive.

Makes me wonder if I should unplug more stuff when on vacation.

▲ nine_k 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I was surprised to find out that my apartment pulls 80-100W when everything is seemingly down during the night. A tiny light here and there, several displays in sleep mode, a desktop idling (mere 15W, but), a laptop charging, several phones charging, etc, the fridge switches on for a short moment. The many small amounts add up to something considerable.

	▲	ToucanLoucan 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I got out of the homelab game as I finished my transition from DevOps to Engineering Lead, and it was simply massively overbuilt for what I actually needed. I replaced an ancient Dell R700 series, R500 series, and a couple supermicros with 3 old desktop PCs in rack enclosures and cut my electric bill nearly $90/month. Fuckin nutty how much juice those things tear through.
	▲	amatecha 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah it kinda puts it all into perspective when you think of how every home used to use 60-watt light bulbs all throughout. Most people just leave lights on all over their home all day, probably using hundreds of watts of electricity. Makes me realize my 35-65w laptop is pretty damn efficient haha

▲ rogerrogerr 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

100W over a month (rule of thumb 730 hours) is 73kWh. Which is $7.30 at my $0.10/kWh rate, or less than $25 at (what Google told me is) Cali’s average $0.30/kWh.

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mercutio2 3 days ago | parent [-]

Your googling gave results that were likely accurate for California 4-5 years ago. My average cost per kWh is about 60 cents.

Rates have gone up enormously because the cost of wildfires is falling on ratepayers, not the utility owners.

Regulated monopolies are pretty great, aren’t they? Heads I win, tales you lose.

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lukevp 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

60 cents per kWh? That’s shocking. Here in Oregon people complain about energy prices and my fully loaded cost (not the per kWh but including everything) is 19c. And I go over the limit for single family residential where I end up in a higher priced bracket. Thanks for making me feel better about my electricity rate. I’m sorry you have to deal with that. The utility companies should have to pay to cover those costs.

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cogman10 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends entirely on the utilities board doing the regulation.

That said, I'm of the opinion that power/water/internet should all be state/county/city ran. I don't want my utilities companies to have profit motives.

My water company just got bought up by a huge water company conglomerate and, you guessed it, immediate rate increases.

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SoftTalker 3 days ago | parent [-]

Most utilities, even if ostensibly privately-owned, are profit-limited and rates must be approved by a regulatory board. Some are organized as non-profits (rural water and electric co-ops, etc.) This is in exchange for the local monopoly.

If your local regulators approved the merger and higher rates, your complaint is with them as much as the utility company.

Not saying that some regulators are not basically rubber stamps or even corrupt.

	▲	cogman10 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree. The issue really is that they are 3 layers removed from where I can make a change. They are all appointed and not elected which means I (and my neighbors) don't have any recourse beyond the general election. IIRC, they are appointed by the governor which makes it even harder to fix (might be the county commissioner, not 100% on how they got their position, just know it was an appointment). I did (as did others), in fact, write in comments and complaints about the rate increases and buyout. That went unheard.

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Damogran6 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

CORE energy in Colorado is charging $0.10819 per kWh _today_

https://core.coop/my-cooperative/rates-and-regulations/rate-...

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LTL_FTC 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They have definitely increased but not all of California is like this. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara, it's about $0.15/kWh. Having Data Centers nearby helps, I suppose.

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chermi 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm guessing the parent is talking about total bill (transmission, demand charges..) $.15/kwH is probably just the usage, and I am very skeptical that's accurate for residential.

	▲	LTL_FTC 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Correct. $0.15/kwh is usage. There are a few small fees but that’s likely the case in most places. This is residential use. If skeptical, a quick online search is all it takes…

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favorited 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Santa Clara's energy rates are an outlier among neighboring municipalities, and should not be used as an example of energy cost in the Bay Area. Santa Clara residents are served by city-owned Silicon Valley Power, which has lower rates than PG&E or SVCE, which service almost all of the South Bay.

	▲	LTL_FTC 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Well the discussion was California as a whole and averages, so I decided to share. As with averages, data is above and bellow the mean, so when a commenter above said $.30/kwh was much too low for California, I decided to lend some support the the argument as I’m in California paying bellow the average. It’s a just a data point. A counter example to the claim made by parent. Maybe it helps fellow nerds pick a spot in the bay if they want to run their homelabs.

▲ titanomachy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

100W continuous at 12¢/kWh (US average) is only ~$9 / month. Is your electricity 5x more expensive than the US average?

▲ RussianCow 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The US average hasn't been that low in a few years; according to [0] it's 17.47¢/kWh, and significantly higher in some parts of the country (40+ in Hawaii). And the US has low energy costs relative to most of the rest of the world, so a 3-5x multiplier over that for other countries isn't unreasonable. Plus, energy prices are currently rising and will likely continue to do so over the next few years.

$50/month for 100W continuous usage isn't totally mad, and that could climb even higher over the rest of the decade.

▲ mercutio2 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Not OP, but my California TOU rates are between a 40 and 70 cents per kWh.

Still only $50/month, not $150, but I very much care about 100W loads doing no work.

▲ cjbgkagh 3 days ago | parent [-]

Those kWh prices are insane, that’ll make industry move out of there.

▲ selkin 3 days ago | parent [-]

Industrial pays different rates than homes.

That said, I am not sure those numbers are true. I am in California (PG&E with East Bay community generation), and my TOU rates are much lower than those.

▲ mercutio2 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

There are 3 different components of PG&E electricity bills, which makes the bill difficult to read. I am also in PG&E East Bay community generation, and when I look at all components, it’s:

Minimum Delivery Charge (what’s paid monthly, which is largely irrelevant, before annual true-up of NEM charges): $11.69/month

Actual charges, billed annually, per kWh:

  Peak NEM charge: $.62277
  Off-Peak NEM charges: $.31026

Plus 3-20% extra (depending on the month) in “non-bypassable charges” (I haven’t figured out where these numbers come from), then a 7.5% local utility tax.

Those rates do get a little lower in the winter (.30 to .48), and of course the very high rates benefit me when I generate more energy than I consume (which only happens when I’m on vacation). But the marginal all-in costs are just very high.

That’s NEM2 + TOU-EV2A, specifically.

	▲	nullc 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Are you actually able to compute that? With PG&E + MCE because of the way they back off the PG&E generation charges, the actual per-time period rates are not disclosed. I can solve for them with three equations for three unknowns... but since they change the rates quarterly by the time I know what my exact rates were they have changed.

▲ mrkstu 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If he’s only paying $50 most of it is connection fees and low usage distorting his per kWh price way up.

▲ yjftsjthsd-h 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Makes me wonder if I should unplug more stuff when on vacation.

What's the margin on unplugging vs just powering off?

	▲	Symbiote 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That also depends on the country you live. The EU (and maybe China?) have been regulating standby power consumption, so most of my appliances either have a physical off switch (usually as the only switch) or should have very low standby power draw. I don't have the equipment to measure this myself.
	▲	dijit 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		By "off" you mean, functionally disabled but with whatever auto-update system in the background with all the radios on for "smart home" reasons - or, "off"?

▲ p12tic 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Depends on a server. This test got 79W idle for _two socket_ E5 2690-V4 server.

https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-system-x3650-m5-workhors...