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In a world where the environment quality and economy are rapidly declining, it is important to know what you, as an individual, can do to help the environment and stay afloat in a recession.  Every week, I hope to find some cool Green products to talk about and see whether they are worth the money.  Today, I have found a few products from Monster, as well as a special outlet from Kill A Watt. 

If a product is turned off, why would I care about a special surge strip?

A common misconception that I would like to address first is something commonly referred to “Vampire Loads.”  Essentially, this is a term used to describe electronics that still draw power even if they are turned off.  When electronics, such as HDTVs are turned off, they actually enter stand-by mode.  During stand-by mode, electricity is still being used, albeit not as much when it’s actually running.  However, everything adds up, so with all your equipment, 20% of your bill is due to vampire loads as cited by the U.S. Department of Energy.  For example, if you leave your cell phone charger plugged longer than the necessary time, it will still draw power and run up your bill.  Don’t worry this happens to be best of us, even I am guilty of this.  However, I do try to make a conscious effort to unplug the charger as soon as it finishes charging.  A product that can really turn off and stop drawing power are becoming more and more common. 

Monster’s HDP 850G, HDP 900G, HDP 1400 and HDP 1850

At CES 2009, Monster had on display these GreenPower PowerCenters, which are special surge strips meant for home theater set ups.  These surge strips have the ability to turn off all equipment when not being used, as well as analyzing how much power your HDTV is really using.  The more advanced models, such as the HDP 1400 and HDP 1850 contain technology such as Clean Power HD Filtering, which actually makes your picture on the screen look better and more clear.  In addition, they are IR compatible meaning they can be powered on/off with any remote control.  On the surge strip itself, there are specially marked outlets where you plug in your peripherals for your home theater.  Whenever the main device is powered on, such as the HDTV, all the other peripherals are powered on and vice versa. 

The HDP 850G costs $99.95, the HDP 900G costs $129.95, the HDP 1400 costs $249.95, and the HDP 1850 costs $349.95. 

The Kill A Watt P4400

Moving on, we have another similar yet different device, which is meant to find out which electronic uses the most energy, so you would “Kill that Watt”.  Basically, you plug in whatever you want to test out into this device and it will tell you the efficiency by displaying Kilowatt per hour, and how much that would total.  By using this product, you will be able to found what is more efficient than something else, which would come in handy when buying electronics.  In addition, the retailer claims you can “calculate electrical expenses by the hour, day, week, month, even year. With an accuracy within 0.2%, you can safely know what to expect your expenses to be.”  Knowledge is power and I’m sure many people would love to know their bills before they come.  Being able to analyze exactly what is running up your bill will help you in the future so can unplug equipment or purchase a special power strip.  This product only costs $25. 

Is it worth it?

If the U.S. Department of Energy is correct in that 20% of your electric bill is due to stand-by power consumption, then investing some money in one of these would definitely pay off.  Not only would you be saving money, which is always nice, but you would be doing your part to help the environment.  After all, any electricity being used is harmful to the environment.  If you are having a hard time making ends meet, should you invest in something like this?  Probably not, getting food on the table comes first.  But, if you can afford one of these, then it will definitely pay off in the long run.

Read [Monster] Read [Kill A Watt]