Energy consumption an afterthought in digital TV legislation
November 8th, 2005High energy prices will remain a drag on the economy “from now on,” Alan Greenspan reminded us last month. The failure to include meaningful energy-efficiency standards in recent digital TV legislation is another reminder of Washington’s failure to take energy conservation seriously.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) would have set energy efficiency requirements for subsidized set-top converter boxes similar to minimum-efficiency standards set to take effect for all boxes sold in California as of January 2007. (The boxes, also known as digital television adapters, convert digital signals for display on analog TVs.) The Markey amendment would have limited converter boxes to a maximum of 8 Watts of power draw when the television is on and 2 Watts when off. These requirements would have saved a typical household (with two TVs) about $20 annually and saved all consumers as much as $3.5 billion in electricity bills in the 5 years following the shift to digital broadcasting, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Rejecting the Markey amendment, the House Energy and Commerce Committee adopted an amendment by Representative Mary Bono (R-CA) that, its opponents say, would yield little or no energy savings and pre-empts California—and any other state—from adopting a better efficiency standard.
• Link: press release
• Related: EPA drops Energy Star standard for set-top boxes [pdf]