Though in 2013 there were more consumer electronics devices...
Though in 2013 there were more consumer electronics devices in the average home than there were three years earlier, those devices accounted for less energy use than in 2010, said a Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems study produced for…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
CEA and released Monday. It’s pure coincidence that CEA released the study two months to the day after Department of Energy TV test procedure took effect, said Doug Johnson, CEA vice president-technology policy, in an email. “Long-standing programs like Energy Star and new-model approaches such as the recent set top box voluntary agreement prove that energy efficiency is best achieved when the public and private sectors work together,” Johnson was quoted as saying in a CEA news release, though the release didn’t mention the DOE program by name (http://bit.ly/1lLB7Fk). CEA has vehemently opposed the DOE TV test procedure on grounds that federal regulation can’t keep pace with rapid technological advancement on TV energy efficiency and that the DOE program blunts the value of well-run voluntary programs like Energy Star. “In the rapidly changing world of electronics devices and high-tech products, these voluntary and market-driven approaches are the only methods that can keep pace with technology, protect innovation and competition, and still achieve efficiency goals,” Johnson said in the release. “If older data is used to analyze potential energy policy decisions, such as voluntary or mandatory regulatory programs, it can lead to less effective policy decisions that may not achieve the end goals.” In the study, Fraunhofer said CE devices accounted for 12 percent of residential electricity consumption in the U.S. last year, vs. 13.2 percent in 2010. While TVs continue to be the most widely owned CE device in the U.S. with 97 percent household penetration in 2013, their per-unit energy consumption “is declining due to innovations in display technologies,” CEA said. Total power consumption of TVs dropped 23 percent from 2010 to 2013, as efficiency levels increased and ownership of CRT TVs declined, CEA said. The overall study found U.S. homes actively used 3.8 billion CE devices in 2013, consuming 169 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, CEA said. The 2010 study said the 2.9 billion devices in active use consumed a 193 TWh of power, it said. Last week, NCTA said set-top boxes, part of a deal on energy use reached between the cable and CE industries and energy efficiency advocates, use little of a typical household’s power (CD June 20 p10).