Just when lower prices were starting to cause my wife and I to start thinking about upgrading our SDTV to newer technology, the EPA (via a Wall Street Journal article) releases this reality-check:
Prices for big-screen television sets are dropping, but the cost of home entertainment may still be headed up. That is because the fancy screens shoppers are lugging home this holiday season consume far more electricity than their old-school predecessors.
Consider that a 42-inch plasma set can consume more electricity than a full-size refrigerator—even when that TV is used only a few hours a day. Powering a fancy TV and full-on entertainment system—with set-top boxes, game consoles, speakers, DVDs and digital video recorders—can add nearly $200 to a family’s annual energy bill.[...]
A 28-inch conventional television set containing a cathode-ray picture tube, or CRT, for example, often uses about 100 watts of electricity. A 42-inch LCD set, a typical upgrade item, requires about twice that amount of electricity. But the real beast is the plasma set. A 42-inch model often sucks up 200 to 500 watts, and a 60-plus-inch plasma screen can consume 500 to 600 watts, depending on the model and programming, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the past year, I’ve swapped in CFL’s in just about every non-rheostat controlled light fixture in the house, and I finally succeeded in tracking down a power strip with individually switched outlets
I don’t really want to undo all that progress for a prettier picture on TV.
Can we get some more efficient HDTV’s on the market, please?
I also wouldn’t mind seeing some standardized energy consumption labeling to get others to start thinking about hidden downsides such as this.
