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The European Parliament has backed EU commission plans to cut the standby electricity consumption of household and office products by almost 75 per cent by 2020.
At a meeting of the ecodesign regulatory committee held on Monday, the commission's proposal to set energy efficiency requirements for all products sold in the 27-nation trading bloc won the support of member states.
The standby regulation covers all electric devices used in households and offices, such as TVs, computers, microwave, ovens and so on.
The proposal sets a maximum period for power consumption for standby of either one or two watts for the year 2010.
From 2013, admissible power consumption level will be lowered to 0.5 Watt or one Watt.
Energy commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, said ecodesign directive would ¿drastically¿ cut standby electricity consumption
"It is a concrete contribution to reach the EU's energy efficiency and climate protection targets, while saving citizens' money."
Backers say the plan will reduce present standby electricity consumption in the EU - approx. 50 TWh per year - by 73 per cent by 2020, equivalent savings to Denmark's annual electricity consumption.
The saving would take out 14Mt of CO2 emissions per year.
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