Celebrate Earth Day by Watching TV

Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! People everywhere are finding ways to make cities greener, fight climate change, and support renewable energy solutions. And in the wonderful world of technology, building and upgrading devices with energy conservation in mind is just as important.

The cable industry views energy efficiency as a strategic imperative that is good for our business and good for our customers. Two years ago, along with energy advocacy groups, we established the voluntary set-top box energy conservation agreement, or VA. The VA works to cut energy use in the 90 million American homes with cable’s video technology. So far, the VA has saved American consumers $168 million in energy bills, and represents a savings of nearly 842,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. By 2017, these new standards will improve set-top box efficiency by up to 45 percent and rack up more than $1 billion in consumer energy savings annually.

Additionally, last summer, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and CableLabs joined forces to create a new collaborative industry venture called Energy 2020. This program brings together the collective vision and technology expertise of cable operators and vendors to accomplish goals that include reducing power consumption and energy costs, optimizing technical facilities and datacenters and establishing new partnerships that will improve hardware development.

In addition to cable set-top boxes, many other entertainment devices and consumer electronics are surprisingly very energy efficient and some of the greenest devices in the home. Take a look at the chart below.

AnnualElectricityCosts

Smartphones, laptops, videogame consoles, set-top boxes, and televisions are the most efficient electronics in the household. CEA reports that residential consumer electronics consume just 12 percent of total residential electricity and 4.5 percent of total US electricity.

Check out CEA’s Energy Calculator to calculate your energy usage based on devices and electronics in your house.