No ‘Grandfathering’ to be Allowed in Energy Star Set-Tops Revision, EPA Says

The EPA has proposed moving the effective date for new specifications from January to June to “align with product development cycles,” but some box makers wanted the agency to consider allowing existing Energy Star boxes to continue using the label because the boxes’ “product cycle” was different from other Energy Star products like TVs. A TiVo representative said the “product lifecycle for some of our products are longer than just a year to 18 months, which is what they are for TVs.” So the best way to address market “flexibility” in product introduction is to “use grandfathering,” he said.

Kathleen Vokes, Energy Star product manager, said that for the program to have “clean dates” customers need to know that Energy Star products meet the latest specification. So the agency doesn’t allow grandfathering, she said. An Energy Star product can carry the label until the effective date of the new specification, she said, and can continue to carry it if it meets the new specification: “If it doesn’t it then has to have the label off.” Saying “having the label is a big deal,” the TiVo representative said unlike TVs, where models last a year at best, TiVo products are introduced every other year. “So we have an effective date 15 months from now in a product cycle that is even longer than that,” he said, referring to the proposed effective date of June 2011 for tier one of the revised set-top box specification.

A National Cable and Telecommunications Association representative wanted to know the status of Energy Star labels on boxes deployed in consumer homes after a new specification takes effect. Would the service provider have to rip off the label when a new specification goes into effect? he asked. As long as the box is in the field it can continue to be labeled Energy Star, said Vokes. But it can’t carry the label if it’s taken off the field and its power characteristics are altered, she said.

Vokes wanted to know whether the 50 percent Energy Star box purchase requirement for service providers was a “huge barrier” for their joining the program. It “makes sense” to have a Energy Star purchase “threshold” for service provider participation in the program, she said. But the “question is what is that magic number that’s going to allow service providers to participate and still be meaningful in terms of getting Energy Star boxes deployed in the field.” Only four service providers, including DirecTV and AT&T, are in the Energy Star program. No cable operator has joined the program, though Comcast has indicated it would deploy enough boxes to qualify this year.

Despite Energy Star addressing set-top boxes for five years, their standby power use continues to be “really high,” a Natural Resources Defense Council scientist said. Fifty to 70 percent of the boxes’ annual energy use occurs “simply when they are not used” for watching, recording or playing back, said Senior Scientist Noah Horowitz. Set-top boxes should be more like smart phones that just use a “trickle of power when they are in your pockets in a ready mode,” he said. “We like to see some of that smarts and functionality migrate to these set-top boxes.”