DOE Takes ‘Step’ Toward Regulating Set-top Box Energy Use
The Department of Energy took what it called “a step in this process” toward regulating how much energy set-top boxes can use, with Thursday’s release of data tables estimating the impact on such rules. Based partly on the government regulatory impact model, DOE issued tables that “assess the economic impact of potential standards on set-top box manufacturers and multichannel video programming distributors.” After negotiations between nonprofits that seek lower energy use and representatives of MVPDs and makers of consumer electronics ended in the fall, “DOE has since moved forward with the regulatory process,” a notice in Thursday’s Federal Register said. It pointed to January’s notice of proposed rulemaking, or NOPR in DOE nomenclature (CD Jan 23 p14), on standards to test the power consumption of set-tops.
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An NOPR on energy consumption levels could come in a few months, if the past separation between the test-methods and box levels rulemaking proceedings is any guide, NCTA General Counsel Neal Goldberg told us. “Manufacturers and video programming distributors may lose a portion” of their present net value under potential set-top standards, the notice said. “For efficiency levels that require extensive software development, DOE calibrated the manufacturer markups to allow for the recovery of this upfront cost by amortizing the investment over the units shipped in the first three years of the analysis period."
DOE held a stakeholder roundtable last month on the test methods, where cable and CE executives opposed the test-method NOPR because they said it’s made moot by a voluntary agreement among 15 cable, satellite, telco-TV and CE companies to cut power usage (CD Feb 28 p6). Power-savings advocates back the test-method NOPR, and seek an energy-use rulemaking, because they estimate U.S. set-tops use $2 billion of electricity a year when they're not recording a show or being used to watch TV, said Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Scientist Noah Horowitz. “It’s critical that the set-top box industry find a way to cut” that “waste,” he continued.
Goldberg, who “always” has “hope” DOE won’t issue an NOPR on energy levels, questioned if the department has “jurisdiction at all” under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The agency is considering set-tops a covered product under EPCA. “Moving forward would be inconsistent with the statute and their own rules, because there are voluntary efforts that would obviate the need for standards,” Goldberg said. Signatories to the voluntary agreement now being implemented “will conserve probably more energy than any potential DOE regulations” in the coming years, because the agency has said its rules won’t be effective until 2018, he said. “We have an agreement that already is starting to show benefits.” AT&T, Cablevision, Cisco, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and sister company EchoStar, the set-top box unit of Motorola Mobility that Arris is buying from Google, Time Warner Cable and others are part of that deal (http://xrl.us/bn46yj).
"The industry has made some good progress recently,” said Horowitz. The agreement “only touches the surface of what needs to be done and does not commit to deliver the deep savings that are achievable,” he said. “NRDC and other efficiency advocates will carefully review DOE’s proposal to ensure it is sufficiently ambitious and that its scope covers the next generation of ‘gateway’ boxes that are expected to enter the market later this year.” Gateway devices that send video and Internet traffic throughout a home would be excluded under the test-method NOPR, which some CE makers want changed, while MVPDs and other manufacturers think that exclusion is right. NCTA hasn’t decided if it will comment on the notice of data availability (http://1.usa.gov/XWltZf), which doesn’t require feedback, Goldberg said.
During last year’s advocate/industry talks, DOE “continued testing and evaluating” set-top efficiency to develop a test procedure, the notice said. The new engineering analysis has 17 box groupings that modeled how much electricity is used when systems are on or in sleep mode, it said. “DOE’s primary goal is to improve the efficiency of consumer products, which result in significant national energy savings, consumer utility bill savings, and greenhouse gas emission reductions. DOE recognizes that there are multiple paths forward to reach this goal.” The agency “intends to move forward with its traditional regulatory rulemaking activities” to come up with conservation standards, it said. “DOE will consider any non-regulatory agreement reached between all stakeholders as an alternative to a regulatory standard.”