Power bills soaring? Turn off the Playstation: study

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Don't blame the fridge for your steep power bills -- an Australian consumer agency study has found that videogame consoles and plasma flat-screen TVs are major electricity guzzlers, even when left on stand-by.

The recent study by Choice said Sony Corp's Playstation 3, closely followed by Microsoft's Xbox 360 and plasma television sets, consumed the most power out of a list of 16 electronic devices tested, including laptops, stereo systems and DVD players.

"Our tests found that leaving a Playstation 3 on while not in use would cost almost... five times more than it would take to run a refrigerator for the same yearly period," said the study which was published on Choice's website www.choice.com.au.

"The plasma TV set was also a power hungry device, consuming over four times more power than a traditional analogue set. The average desktop computer was third on the list."

The report advised consumers to switch off their electronic devices at the source, rather than just from the remote control, which puts them on power-consuming stand-by mode. "This saves on money, not to mention carbon emissions," it added.

(Reporting by Pauline Askin, Editing by Miral Fahmy & Louise Heavens)