A recent government survey has shown that TV's left on standby overnight will consume 7.3TWh of electricity a year. Whilst this may seem small in comparison to the UK's overall annual usage of 365TWh, it is nevertheless something which potentially as a country we could look to address. It is accepted that perhaps with a government campaign, the effects could be halved.

The reality is that overnight there is a huge drop in demand for electricity, and in the Winter when central heating and lighting are required in the morning, the ramp up and increase in energy is significant. The only way that supply can be met is by having generation running at half load, as demand picks up then supply can match demand. If demand is eradicated overnight, then the ability for stations to run at half load decreases. The result is that prices and brown outs increase, because the physical side of meeting demand becomes more difficult.

It is known that economy seven tariffs promoted in the late eighties and early nineties caused some problems for generators as they were getting demand spikes at 2am and they had to schedule plant to be available to meet this demand. This meant an increase in price, and so hedging and managing economy seven tariffs became loss making. These promotions have reduced and in fact in most cases work out to be no cheaper than a standard tariff.

Energy effeciency must be promoted and particularly for environmental reasons, the rise in prices has seen more possibility for energy effeciency schemes to be cost effective but they must be practical in reality.