The impact of changing TV technologies and market trends on the energy consumption on TVs and the need for a better TV energy test method

Panel: Panel 6: Products and appliances

Authors:
Keith Jones, Leura, Australia
Bob Harrison, Milton Keynes, England

Abstract

For some time it has been apparent that TVs, due to technology change and the trend toward increased screen size, have developed increased energy use footprint within households. Existing measurement standards have been shown to be inadequate in the measurement of TV energy use. This has resulted in an international effort lead by the IEC to develop a new method that cover all technologies and screen sizes and represents real life use of TVs.

This paper discusses the issues and progress associated with this international effort. Included is a comparison of the energy use of TVs compared to other common household appliances. The existing standards for the measurement of TV energy use are considered as is the newly proposed standard. One of the aims of the new TV Energy measurement Standard was to develop a method that was equally applicable to all TV technology types. The extent to which this has been achieved with the new method is assessed.

One of the conclusions that can be drawn is that current understanding of plasma TV energy use is not accurate and although plasma TVs by virtue of their size do consume considerably more energy than traditional TVs this may not be as high as previously thought. Another conclusion that is drawn is that the new proposed method, by more accurately characterising the TV that is actually watched, will encourage the adoption of energy saving technologies such as modulated backlights for LCD TVs.