Energy In the News

State energy officials are nearing a decision on a ban on new energy-hogging televisions.

The first-in-the-nation regulations would phase in starting in 2011 and would set a cap on the amount of power a TV can draw. Large sets would be allowed to use more power than small ones. All models larger than 58 inches would be exempt from the regulations, though they may be covered in the future.

All televisions would have to draw less than 1 watt of "standby" power when turned off and plugged in. And new televisions would be tagged with labels giving details on energy demands, as refrigerators and other appliances are.

The rules, scheduled for a vote as soon as Nov. 18, would have no impact on televisions already in homes.

The California Energy Commission says the controls will help keep the proliferation of bigger televisions from swamping the state's other efforts to save energy and fight global warming. Meeting the standards won't drive up television prices, the agency argues, and consumers will save on electricity bills.

Industry groups protest that televisions are getting more efficient on average anyway and that market forces and voluntary federal efficiency programs will be enough to continue that trend. They say the proposed California standards would limit manufacturers' options to introduce new technologies that may appeal to buyers, regardless of how much power they draw.

"It really is a matter of flexibility," said Doug Johnson, technology policy director for the Consumer Electronics Association, a national industry group.

Both sides agree the regulations won't affect the bulk of the television market. More than 1,050 models sold today – around three-quarters of the market – meet the 2011 standards and nearly 300 comply with more stringent rules that would go into effect in 2013, the Energy Commission says.

Ken Rider, an electrical engineer with the Energy Commission, said televisions are indeed becoming more efficient year by year, on average. The problem, he said, is that there are many energy gluttons on the market, and manufacturers don't seem inclined to pull them.

"Without regulation, there's going to be this laggard group" that never improves, he said.

Under the standards, all new 42-inch televisions, for instance, would use less than 183 watts by 2011 and less than 116 watts by 2013. A 2008 review by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. found some 42-inch plasma models drawing more than 400 watts.

Plasma televisions on average draw more power than LCD sets and would have more ground to cover to meet the new regulations. But environmental groups point out that Panasonic, the leading plasma manufacturer, has announced new plasma technology to be released early next year that will comply with the Energy Commission's proposed 2013 standards.

Plasma models make up about 9 percent of the televisions sold today, while LCDs account for nearly all the rest of the market, according to figures from Quixel Research, a Portland, Ore.-based firm that tracks the industry.

According to the Energy Commission, energy use by televisions has grown from between 3 percent and 4 percent of household energy consumption in the 1990s to roughly 9 percent today.

Despite the recession, the number of televisions sold in the United States has soared in the last three years, jumping from 23.6 million sets in 2007 to 28 million in 2008 and a projected 32 million this year, according to Quixel figures. The average screen size is also creeping up, with 40-inch models soon to replace 32-inch sets as the best-selling market segment.

Without the proposed regulations, the Energy Commission says TVs will account for 18 percent of household energy use by 2023. The controls, the commission says, will drive huge energy savings, enough to eliminate the need for one new 615-megawatt power plant.

Johnson's group figures the Energy Commission overstates the savings from the policy by a factor of four, if the industry's current trend of efficiency improvement is taken into account.