The 330-Watt Person

The other day an article titled “The 330-Watt Person” appeared in one of the Zurich newspapers. This refers back to the 2000-Watt Society, a goal for energy use in Switzerland’s future. Each person should then use no more than 2000 watts, which is the equivalent of having 20 bulbs of 100 watts burning continuously. While the measure for the goal is expressed in units usually reserved for electricity, other forms of energy are also included, i.e. fossil fuels, biomass etc. and then measurement in watts becomes an equivalent. This is all very confusing, but what is important is that it is estimated that energy use per person in Switzerland today is 3 times this value, so 2000 watts is an ambitious goal indeed.

Given that 2000 watts is several times greater than 330 watts, what is the meaning of this article? It seems that the author measured his home electricity use during one day. For this purpose he used a measuring device into which all the applicable devices and apparatus could be plugged: lights, cell phone charger, fridge, coffee maker etc. At the end of the day, all of his measurements added up to 330 watts.

The author learned a few valuable lessons from this exercise. The enormous use of electricity by old-fashioned light bulbs, when compared to LEDs, was a shock. He saw in quantitative detail just how much energy is wasted by apparatus in standby mode. But was this exercise really worth an article covering nearly an entire newspaper page? To be sure, he says clearly that he could not measure energy-gobbling apparatus such as boilers and heating, as they could not be plugged into his measuring device. He also mentions the fact that private electricity use in the home is a fraction of total energy use, with heating and mobility making up by far the largest percentage.

If the author has encouraged a number of readers to clean up their act as regards old-fashioned light bulbs and standby, he will perhaps have increased awareness of the need to cut back on one’s own electricity use. But given the overwhelming portion of energy use laid at the door of heating and mobility, it seems misleading and out of proportion to the size of the problem to go into such detail as regards only the use of electricity in the home. Perhaps I am being cynical, but I can imagine a smug person thinking he has really contributed to saving energy by turning off apparatus on standby, but who then gets into his powerful car and zooms to a shop easily reachable by bike or tram. Once there he – or she! – purchases out-of-season produce flown thousands of miles, cancelling out the switching off standby many times over.

Let’s have a sense of proportion here.