About one month ago (Nov. 1st) the new EPA EnergyStar 3.0 program requirements went into effect which includes new power budget numbers for consumer TV sets. We had a recent e-mail chat with EETimes Editor and Chief Junko Yoshida over the topic and particularly the lack of some of the more popular size LCD sets that meet the new reduced power standards.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

The EPA standards mandate allowable watts of a given TV set, spelled out in a formula based on total screen area (not the more convenient diagonal screen size that most folks are familiar with). The math is simple, figure out the total area of a given set, then apply one of three different formulas (based on total area) that fits. This methodology breaks down accordingly to relative screen size in diagonal (see table).

The EPA formula generates step values that break at the 40-inch, and 50-inch class sizes generating allowable wattage numbers disproportionate to the increase in screen size. For example, at 42-inch diagonal, the screen size over 40-inch increases just 5% yet the power budget jumps a whopping 22%. The same can be said for the 50-inch class that garners a 20% power allowance increase over the 6% smaller screen sized 47-inch sets.

What’s interesting is that based on current flat screen sets available today, the formula it tends to favor certain larger screen displays. That is to say, given the benchmarks provided by the EPA, the +50-inch class flat panel sets can pass EnergyStar 3.0 much more readily than the smaller 32-, 37-, and 40-inch class sets currently on the market. For example, six out of twenty 32-inch sets passed, and none of the listed 37- or 40-inch made the cut. Only five out of twenty in the 42-inch class flat panel passed the EnergyStar 3.0 spec.

Of the larger size sets, six out of seventeen 46-inch sets passed, one of the eleven 47-inch sets could pass and when the budget increased 20% with the 50-inch class sets, seven of the twenty-four plasma sets listed passed the 3.0 EnergyStar power standard and seven out of the eight 52-inch LCDs passed. In the above 52-inch flat display class, only two of ten sets were within the power budget of the 3.0 spec.

For more details please see the nifty table put together by the boys and girls at CNET.com for the complete listing of available flat panel TVs and some great advice on power saving et al, click here.

Suffice it to say that power savings is one important way to evaluate your next flat panel TV. But making the seemingly arbitrary power budget established by the EPA may not be as important to the consumer as the manufacturer, who has to deal with these restrictions.

The government may come to find unintended consequences from this new standard. For example, like a tax, the numbers may tend to incent manufacturers to produce TVs that will easily hit the higher step values, and abandon sizes that are more difficult or costly to produce within the lower power spec. So forget that 47-inch LCD, and go right to the 50-inch that’s on sale…