Energy Cost Considerations to Running a Big Screen TV
Energy usage to running a big screen TV are usually not a top priority on most peoples minds, but times are tough and understanding you monthly budgeting costs is very important.
Buying a new big screen TV will affect your electric bills for years to come.
Home heating and cooling systems, along with lighting and your major home appliances will account for much of your energy consumption, but big screen TVs are no laughing matter when it comes to consuming your energy resources.
Some sizes and types, particularly plasma, use more electricity than an energy efficient refrigerator.
Engineers have now determined the energy used by a typical LCD, plasma, and rear-projection TVs turned on for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Yes, that is the typical usage a U.
S.
household watches television annually.
Most sets did not use much more energy than a 32- to 36-inch picture tube TV.
But 50-inch plasmas with 1080p screen resolution used twice as much energy as the biggest picture tube set and more than a comparable LCD TVs.
It's obvious that bigger screens of any type television will consume more electricity than smaller models.
And, its important to know that with LCD and rear-projection TVs, screen resolution has almost no affect on energy consumption because all the pixels in the screen are illuminated by the same backlight.
However, with plasma sets, 1080p models will use more energy than the 720p models.
This is due to the fact that 1080p sets have many more pixels, each of which is illuminated separately.
With LCD sets a key factor is, the higher the backlight setting, the more electricity it will use.
Just a few numbers to help you understand, a newer 20-cu.
-ft refrigerator cost approximately $50 annually to run, and a 50-inch 1080p plasma set costs approximately $110 annually.
(These numbers are based on the Department of Energy's 2007 national average pricing for energy.
) Even if the cost differences of a few dollars a month don't matter much to your budgeting needs, keep in mind that the millions of TVs used in American households consume a huge amount of energy.
There is definitely an environmental advantage to using a more energy efficient TV set.
Buying a new big screen TV will affect your electric bills for years to come.
Home heating and cooling systems, along with lighting and your major home appliances will account for much of your energy consumption, but big screen TVs are no laughing matter when it comes to consuming your energy resources.
Some sizes and types, particularly plasma, use more electricity than an energy efficient refrigerator.
Engineers have now determined the energy used by a typical LCD, plasma, and rear-projection TVs turned on for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Yes, that is the typical usage a U.
S.
household watches television annually.
Most sets did not use much more energy than a 32- to 36-inch picture tube TV.
But 50-inch plasmas with 1080p screen resolution used twice as much energy as the biggest picture tube set and more than a comparable LCD TVs.
It's obvious that bigger screens of any type television will consume more electricity than smaller models.
And, its important to know that with LCD and rear-projection TVs, screen resolution has almost no affect on energy consumption because all the pixels in the screen are illuminated by the same backlight.
However, with plasma sets, 1080p models will use more energy than the 720p models.
This is due to the fact that 1080p sets have many more pixels, each of which is illuminated separately.
With LCD sets a key factor is, the higher the backlight setting, the more electricity it will use.
Just a few numbers to help you understand, a newer 20-cu.
-ft refrigerator cost approximately $50 annually to run, and a 50-inch 1080p plasma set costs approximately $110 annually.
(These numbers are based on the Department of Energy's 2007 national average pricing for energy.
) Even if the cost differences of a few dollars a month don't matter much to your budgeting needs, keep in mind that the millions of TVs used in American households consume a huge amount of energy.
There is definitely an environmental advantage to using a more energy efficient TV set.
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