i3 - January/February 2021 - 36

Policy

By Doug Johnson

G R E E N P O L I CY

Milestone Agreement on
TV Energy Efficiency

 I 

The group also agreed to discussions to
establish a potential set of formal voluntary energy commitments to further
improve energy efficiency in new TVs
sold in the U.S. and Canada based upon
the laboratory testing of a cross-section
of TVs using this new test method.
Under the new agreement, manufacturer signatories Funai, Hisense, Konka,
LG, Samsung, TCL and Vizio, representing the majority of the TV market in
North America, along with NRDC and
ACEEE, will develop a new test method
that better enables accurate, consistent
evaluation of automatic brightness

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designed to establish a voluntary agreement that includes minimum energy
efficiency levels for most new televisions sold in the U.S. and Canada.
Similar energy efficiency voluntary
agreements are in place for set-top
boxes and small network equipment
such as routers and modems.
" This agreement is a promising step
toward modernizing the approach to TV
control, motion detection dimming,
energy efficiency, " said Doug Johnson,
screen-average luminance and standby
vice president of technology policy, CTA.
power of internet-connected TVs. The
" CTA is thrilled to join NRDC and
signatories agreed to use best efforts to
ACEEE as partners in this initiative.
promote the adoption of the new test
And we look forward to developing a
method by standards bodies and regulastrong program that makes televisions
tors, and they agreed to collaborate on
more energy efficient and enables conlaboratory testing of the energy usage of
tinued innovation. "
a representative set of new TVs using
" By working together, we hope to
the new test method.
develop an updated test
method that better reflects
Working Together
actual amount of elecThe parties also will
This agreement the
tricity used by new televiuse the test data to
is a promising
sions and find ways to bring
inform a process
step toward
down their national energy
modernizing
consumption, " said Noah
the approach to Horowitz, senior scientist,
NRDC. " As today's TVs are
TV energy
being sold with an everefficiency.
increasing set of features
- Doug Johnson, CTA
and getting larger every
year, efforts like this to
improve their efficiency are
vitally important. "
" As technologies evolve and new features become commonplace, it's critical
that test methods keep up, " said Jennifer
Amann, buildings program director,
ACEEE. " An updated test method will
provide consumers, policymakers, and
others a more realistic picture of TV
energy use to inform their decisions.
Through this collaboration, we'll work
on a new test method and encourage its
use in efficiency programs to reduce
energy use and associated carbon emissions from TVs. "

John Lamb/Getty Images

n October 2020, leading television manufacturers,
CTA, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and
the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
(ACEEE) together announced the breakthrough Voluntary
Agreement to Promote a New Test Method for Measuring the
Energy Usage of Televisions to develop and promote an updated
test method for measuring television energy use.

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i3 - January/February 2021

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