HDTV Set-Top Boxes Waste More Energy Than Your Fridge!

Do you use an HDTV set top box in your home? If you were paying diligent attention to your energy bills then you may have noticed a huge increase in costs after you introduced this new appliance to your home. In some cases, the set top box can actually use more energy than your home’s refrigerator, adding considerable cost to your monthly bills. This is due primarily to vampire energy and is something that you may want to think about when budgeting your monthly household bills.

The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that eight out of ten homes in the U.S. currently subscribe to pay TV services and more than 150 million homes use set-top boxes for their viewing. The annual energy required to operate all of those set-top boxes is equivalent to the annual household electricity consumption of the entire state of Maryland, a cost exceeding $3 billion not to mention its impact on the environment.

Not all set-top boxes are equally to blame. A regular no-frills set-top box uses about the same amount of power as your desktop computer, which is a lot but not excessive for most homes. However, if you’ve added DVR functionality to your set-top box then energy use increases to a level exceeding that of a 21 cubic foot refrigerator. Wow! Two thirds of this is due solely to the vampire energy that is draining because of the fact that these devices are always on, twenty-four hours per day.

Hopefully this is on its way to changing. Energy Star is working on creating better guidelines for these relatively new home devices. Increased awareness of the problem will also help consumers make smarter choices about set-top box use in the home. When looking at your monthly electric  bill you may wonder if you should eliminate pay TV. Don’t forget to take into consideration the energy costs of your set-top box as you make this decision.

Sources: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/home-theater/your-tv-set-top-box-might-cost-you-more-on-your-energy-bills-than-your-refrigerator/5026, http://www.nrdc.org/energy/settopboxes.asp