If you want a dollar value, I'd imagine it's pennies per month depending on how often the machine is under a load.
assuming a kilowatt hour, the unit they bill you on, is 10-15 cents, then a machine running 24/7/365 would use up this much energy
machine power consumption rate (in watts)/1000 X 24hrs X 365 X .10 to.15 dollars
that nets .876 to 1.314 dollars a year per Watt. So you multiply that by your average computer consumption and you'll figure out how much you're spending on your computer.
It's for this reason that I do any major downloading on my netbook now. It really isn't worth keeping my desktop on all year as it uses 200W even at idle, which is anywhere from 175 to 260 dollars a year on the electric bill. The netbook in comparison uses much less, around a tenth of that at max load (
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/975/8/ )
just putting things into perspective mathematically. I know electricity costs vary depending on where you are, but a ball par figur to go by if your computer is a high powered system is that every 1W, if run 24/7 will cost you around 1 dollar a year, or within 50% of that figure. If you think about all the 40-100W lightbulbs and other highpowered appliances, like those 800-1500W electric space heaters used for winters like here in Wisconsin where I live, you'll see that electricity costs do add up over time.
It's a small part the price we pay as PC hardware enthusiasts.
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