Many small consumers, one growing problem: Achieving energy savings for electronic equipment operating in low power modes

An increasing amount of electricity is used by equipment that is neither fully "on" nor fully "off." We call these equipment states low power modes, or "lopomos." "Standby" and "sleep" are the most familiar lopomos, but some new products already have many modes. Lopomos are becoming common in household appliances, safety equipment, and miscellaneous products. Ross and Meier (2000) reports that several international studies have found standby power to be as much as 10% of residential energy consumption. Lopomo energy consumption is likely to continue growing rapidly as products with lopomos that use significant amounts of energy penetrate the market. Other sectors such as commercial buildings and industry also have lopomo energy use, perhaps totaling more in aggregate than that of households, but no comprehensive measurements have been made. In this paper, we propose a research agenda for study of lopomo energy consumption. This agenda has been developed with input from over 200 interested parties. Overall, there is consensus that lopomo energy consumption is an important area for research. Many see this as a critical time for addressing lopomo issues. As equipment designs move from the binary "on/off" paradigm to one that encompasses multiple power modes, there is a unique opportunity to address the issue of low power mode energy consumption while technology development paths are still flexible.