Abstract
Standby power is the electricity consumed in an electrical equipment when it is switched-off or not performing its main function. Due to the acceleration of digital electronics and home networking, standby power use tends to increase rapidly year by year. In this paper, standby power consumption in residential sector in Korea has been surveyed and reported for the first time. Totally 825 pieces of electrical equipments that consume standby power in 53 households were investigated. The average standby power per equipment and total standby power per household were 3.66W and 57.0W, respectively. Annual standby power consumption per household was estimated 306kWh; which means the standby power consumption in residential sector in Korea can be estimated 4.6TWh a year representing 1.67 percent of total electrical consumption (274TWh).