Through the standby function, an electrical device goes out of your main operation mode (in use); but remains on, assuming a waiting function to save electricity, until the consumer reuse the equipment. In this dissertation, the estimated power consumption is presented with the use of standby function in electrical appliances from domestic use; and the financial impact of this waste to the population. The study was motivated as a way to contribute to the real understanding of this consumption, and offer subsidies that serve as warning; since there is an increased presence of the standby technology in existing devices, and the emergence of new equipments that has an idle consumption (when not operating), perhaps this scenario may be going against the current policies of energy conservation. To estimate, initially was used information from Electrical Appliances Ownership Survey to draw a picture of how each device is used in standby operation; then collected information about power consumption obtained through measurements of each electrical equipment, where it was identified that cable TV is the biggest villain of the idle standby consumption. The last step was to extrapolate the estimates for a local electric utility and Brazil, and simulate the waste of electrical energy consumption in the standby electrical household appliances, coming to the result of 1.6 TWh/year of waste allocated to residential consumers in Brazil, which represents 1,9 percent of the energy sales in the segment.