THOMPSON SUSTAINABLE HOMES CONTINUES TO PROVE THAT REAPING THE BENEFITS OF ELITE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFOMANCE DOES NOT MEAN COMPROMISING YOUR DESIGN VISION

Televisions

How much electricity does my television use?

Most TV's use about 80 to 400 watts, depending on the size and technology. Using a sample cost of 15¢ per kilowatt-hour and five hours of viewing a day, that's $1.83 to $9.13/mo. ($22 to $110 per year).  Below you'll find energy usage information for different models.

Before you obsess over how much electricity your TV is using, I want you to obsess over how much your heating, cooling, and lighting is using. TV energy use is a drop on the bucket for most people. TV's typically account for only 5% of home electrical use.¹ You can save more money by attacking the real energy hogs first.

The easiest way to save energy with your TV is to turn it off.  Does anyone lie on their deathbed thinking, "I wish I'd watched more TV" ?  I consider myself fortunate to have had a near-death experience, because it made me realize that I didn't want to waste the limited time I have on this planet on watching television. This isn't just my idea -- the feeling among the population that a television is a necessity is now at an all-time low. (Pew Research, 2009)

You may have heard that the newer TV's are energy hogs. That's true, but it's not because of the new technology, it's because new TV's are bigger than the old ones. LCD's are actually more efficient than the old CRT's they're replacing. But when you double or triple the screen size, that's gonna take more power.

If you're getting a new TV, here's my basic advice:

1. Get an Energy Star model. The U.S. government gives the Energy Star label to energy-efficient appliances. Energy Star-labeled TV's use about 30% less energy than other models. Happily about 75% of current models are already Energy Star-compliant. Get an Energy Star TV and you can't go wrong. In fact, California is considering banning all non-Energy Star TV's. (MSNBC, 2009)  See the list of Energy Star TV's.
2. For <50" get a LCD, for >50" get a DLP.  LCD is more efficient at small sizes, DLP at larger sizes. And if getting a DLP, get a model that uses an LED light source, which uses even less energy than older DLP models, and which will save you from having to replace the bulb every 1-3 years.
3. Think twice about plasma.  Plasma sets are the worst of all, in terms of energy use.  However, if you don't watch TV very much, then the extra energy use of plasma won't be significant.