DOE to Issue Set-Top Box Energy Efficiency Rulemaking

The pledges the six top cable operators made through NCTA and CableLabs, to develop chips that can greatly cut set-tops’ power consumption when not recording a program or showing it on a TV set, remain in place and on track, said executives representing cable operators and CE makers. The Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped lead the talks on behalf of advocates for less energy use, said it hopes cable makes good on those plans. NRDC also hopes other multichannel video program distributors including direct broadcast satellite and telco-TV companies keep trying to trim electricity use of video devices.

DOE “appreciates industry’s engagement and comments throughout this process,” a spokeswoman said. “We are proceeding with the notice.” The agency had paused plans to issue a rulemaking notice until at least Oct. 1, 2012, as both sides negotiated on a commitment that would have averted the need for a rulemaking and eventual order. CEA, NCTA, NRDC and the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP) extended their talks past Oct. 1 “in an attempt to get an agreement,” officials of those groups wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu Thursday. “Unfortunately, despite intensive, good-faith efforts, the parties were not able to reach a consensus,” and NRDC and ASAP ended the conversations, the letter continued.

The department now is “proceeding with the notice and comment rulemaking better informed from our discussions with industry,” the spokeswoman said. Energy “will continue to work with our public and private partners as the process moves forward,” she said. A tentative voluntary agreement in May used an initiative already under way by CableLabs and the six largest U.S. cable operators. Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable are deploying set-tops capable of “light sleep” that saves some energy when the devices are not in use. In 2014 they still plan to begin testing in the field “deep-sleep” devices that consume five watts or less when used, cable and CE executives said. “DOE’s pause in the regulatory process provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to become better informed about the opportunities and constraints with respect to set top box energy efficiency improvements,” the letter to Chu said. “All of us will continue to be actively engaged in our own significant efforts to achieve greater energy efficiency in set-top boxes."

The commitment cable operators were willing to make now to deploying deep-sleep boxes beyond the field trials now planned to start in 2014 wasn’t sufficient to satisfy the energy-efficiency advocates, both sides said. The question for NRDC and allies is whether beyond developing more sophisticated chips that can power down partially, unlike the semiconductors now in set-tops, cable operators will then deploy these devices, NRDC Senior Scientist Noah Horowitz said. “They haven’t made a commitment to purchase those,” which is “critical,” he said. That’s “what we weren’t able to get in a voluntary agreement,” Horowitz continued. Cable’s pledge “is not just talk, there has been progress that has been made” on “many fronts,” an NCTA spokesman said. Operators were willing to commit to buying the deep-sleep boxes in the future, though not to the extent advocates wanted, another industry official said.

The field trials of the boxes to start at operators at the end of 2014 “can vary in terms of how long they take to prove out successful,” said cable lawyer Paul Glist of Davis Wright, representing NCTA. “We have to be sure as you would expect that all the services are going to work, and the boxes actually operate in a way that delivers for the consumer experience. So the threshold issue is to get through a successful field trial before we can even talk about” scheduling deployment on a commercial basis and procurement, he added. NCTA will continue to “participate in discussions with the satellite guys and telco-TV guys and the suppliers to see if we can work together to … achieve the energy savings that we had hoped to achieve” through an accord, Goldberg said. “We obviously are always willing to continue the discussion to come up with creative ways to achieve our common goals,” he said of resuming negotiations with the nonprofits. “Should the industry deliver a proposal that provides the desired energy savings with sufficient certainty, we will of course consider it seriously,” Horowitz said. “Unfortunately, the industry was unwilling to deliver a proposal that met the objectives of the negotiations.”

The CE and cable industries still think a rulemaking is unnecessary, because their energy-saving work has outlasted the unsuccessful talks, executives said. Both sides in agreeing to converse had recognized that it would take DOE longer under a rulemaking to impose rules than the deployment plans called for, said executives including CEA Vice President of Technology Policy Doug Johnson: “There’s a better way than DOE’s traditional approach.” The issue is “a matter of getting the policy approach right, and these voluntary initiatives … do work to transform a market to higher levels of efficiency,” he said. The rulemaking approach “doesn’t work,” said NCTA General Counsel Neal Goldberg. “We can do it better.” Cable will “continue in our efforts,” he said.

NRDC and the other groups promoting efficiency continue to back DOE rules covering set-tops, Horowitz said. Industry action is needed nonetheless, because the $2 billion in annual electricity a 2010 NRDC study found dormant set-tops used could be cut with deep-sleep devices, he said. That energy is equivalent to the output of six mid-size, 500 megawatt power plants, he said. Although cable has been rolling out light-sleep boxes that use somewhat less power when inactive, that’s been offset by the increasing portion of deployed set-tops that now have HD and/or DVRs versus two years ago, Horowitz said.