Sony, Toshiba, LG, Samsung and other makers announced a number of their respective 2009 HDTVs will meet or exceed the Energy Star 3.0 standard for lower energy consumption.  What does this mean to you? Choosing an Energy Star 3.0 HDTVs can result lower electric bills.

There are several methods manufacturers are utilizing to achieve more energy efficiency. Sony’s has developed a new line of LCD HDTVs called the VE5 series. It will ship in the Summer and uses “Hot Cathode Fluorescent  Lamps” (HCFL) to help achieve higher energy efficientcy (most LCDs use Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL) . Other makers simply dim the backlight sufficiently for lower power usage at the expense of image brightness (this applies to LCD HDTVs).

Panasonic announced all its upcoming Neo PDP 2009 plasma models use 50% of the power required for its (same size) 2007 models at the same picture brightness, a real achievement. This was accomplished using a number of improvements including more efficient drive circuitry.

There two requirements to the Energy Star 3.0 HDTV standard (effective 11/08): When the TV is in the “off” position it will consume no more than 1.0 watt of power, a welcome change, and power consumption in the “Standard” viewing mode (often referred to as the “home” mode as opposed to dealer showroom mode) must be no higher than determined by the following formulas:

HDTVs that are less than 680 square inches viewing area must consume equal or less power of .200* (times) the screen area (in sq. inches) +32

HDTVs with 680 sq. inches area to 1045 sq. inches viewing area must consume no more  watts of power than .240*Area +27

HDTVs with a viewing area of more than 1045 sq. inches must consume equal or less watts of power than .156*Area +151

The equation to calculate power consumption and other information can be found at the EPA’s Energy Star website at http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/eligibility/tv_vcr_elig.pdf

To make it easy for our readers to learn how much power Energy Star 3.0 compliant HDTVs will use, the HD GURU has created a chart that lists maximum power usage by screen size.  It lists HDTV screens from 17” to 120”.  The link can be found here energy-star-3-chart.pdf.

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