Power hungry Ultra HD TVs could add $1BN to viewers' bills


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| 19 November 2015




Their list price is enough by itself to burn a metaphorical hole in your pocket, now Ultra HD TVs could actually do this thanks to their huge power consumption.



According to a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in the US, the latest Ultra HD sets use an average of 30% more energy than their HDTV predecessors, which could add $1 billion to US viewers' annual utility bills if energy-saving improvements are not expanded to all models.

NRDC and its partner, Ecos Research, analysed public databases of Ultra HD television energy use and market share sales data, and also performed power use measurements on 21 televisions representing a cross-section of 2014 and 2015 models. The testing focused on 55-inch TVs because they are the most prevalent size and represent the best value among such TVs currently on offer.

Alarmingly the research calculated that without additional efficiency improvements, a US-wide switch from HDTVs with 36-inch and larger screens to Ultra HD TVs, alone, would cause America's annual electricity use to jump by 8 billion kilowatt hours - three times the amount consumed by all the homes in San Francisco in a year and as much electricity as is generated by 2.5 large (500-megawatt) power plants. NRDC's analysis also showed that some of the really large, least efficient models used as much annual energy as a new refrigerator.

One of the key elements designed to drive Ultra HD uptake is high dynamic range yet the testing showed the HDR version of a movie used 47% more power than the same title in 4K format. NRDC warned that attention was needed to understand HDR energy use and reduce it.
"The national energy and environmental consequences of the transition to Ultra HD TV will be profound unless the TV manufacturing industry devotes sufficient time and resources to improve the efficiency of the TVs brought to market," said senior scientist Noah Horowitz, director of NRDC's Centre for Energy Efficiency and author of the Big Picture: Ultra High-Definition Televisions Could Add $1 Billion to Viewers' Annual Electric Bills report .

On a brighter note, the research did point to steps that consumers, manufacturers, and policymakers could take to make sure newest-generation televisions were not needlessly wasting energy. "We found an almost three-fold difference in energy consumption between the best and worst Ultra HD TVs, with some models using little or no more energy than their HD predecessors, proving the technology already exists to cut needless energy waste in these large televisions," Horowitz added.