Billions of linked-in electronic devices worldwide are wasting enough electricity to power 80 per cent of Canada’s needs, says a new report.

And the power wasted by appliances on standby is set to soar higher, says the International Energy Agency.

It points the finger at the increasing demand for devices that can be connected to networks so they’re accessible from anywhere and appliances that are always ready to click into action without a warm-up.

Many household appliances are being hooked into communication networks, so that consumers can use their smartphones to turn on the coffee maker before they get home.

The downside: That means the devices must always be in standby mode, never really turned off.

And standby, the report says, is a misleading term: Many devices use almost as much power on standby as they do when they’re actively functioning.

“Currently, the estimate for global electricity wasted in this way by network-enabled devices is 400 terawatt hours per year,” says the report.

That’s a lot: Canada used about 518 terawatt hours a year of electricity in 2013, according to the Canadian Electricity Association. (One terawatt hour is one billion kilowatt hours.)

The waste will get worse, says the IEA.

In 2013, the world had about 14 billion “network-enabled devices,” but the number is set to grow.

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