Televisions are surprisingly large users of energy, not because they use that much electricity per hour but because they are often left on for long periods with no one actually watching them. A television left on for 8 hours a day can use as much as $150 dollars a year of electricity!

Televisions also vary from one to another in the amount of electricity they use. Important determinants of energy use include:

• the size of the screen
• type of television (whether they are the traditional televisions or the new LCD or plasma screens)

Generally speaking the larger the screen the more electricity the television uses; and LCD televisions use less electricity than traditional televisions, which use less than plasma screen televisions of the same size.

The feature on appliances that allows them to activate immediately when the power switch is turned on also uses relatively large amounts of electricity in television sets, even when they are turned off, especially on plasma televisions. This type of appliance or other device is called an energy vampire.

What you can do:

Turn off the television when not using it!!

If you tend to fall asleep in front of the television connect your television to a timer to shut it off.

If you have more than one television use the smaller screen television whenever you can
Cut back on vampire losses by connecting your television to a power strip that can be shut off manually, thus eliminating the low wattage “leakage”.

Savings:

Reducing the time that a 27 inch television is on by an average of 4 hours a day will save more than $45/year. For a 42 inch plasma television the savings would be over $100/year.

Learn more on our Appliances and Vampires pages.