The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently published a study revealing that the electricity required to operate all U.S. set-top boxes (STBs) is equal to the annual household electricity consumption of the entire state of Maryland, results in 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and costs American households more than $3 billion each year. The study identified that more than 80% of U.S. homes subscribe to some form of pay television service, which explains how these energy-hungry devices could consume approximately 27 billion kilowatt hours of electricity equal to the output of nine average (500 megawatt) coal fired power plants in 2010.

In the current business model, broadband and digital television providers specify, purchase, and supply these boxes to customers. As the spread of broadband and digital television services increases, the number of these devices is likely to increase, and subsequently, the customer’s household electricity use is likely to increase. Unfortunately, service providers supplying STB’s and other devices in the home have little or no incentive to design, build, buy or demand more efficient devices because they do not bear the operational cost associated with the device. Instead, the cost to power these devices is shouldered by the consumer.

Therein lies a real problem. From an energy efficiency and energy usage standpoint, there is a disconnect between the consumer who pays for the electricity to power the box, and the operator who by and large determines how much electricity the box will use. The driver behind the NRDC research is an effort to raise public awareness about the amount of electricity these devices use, their cost to consumers for that electricity, and more importantly, the growing impact these boxes will have on our energy grid if the industry continues down a path of disinterest regarding STB efficiency. 

There are two primary solutions the NRDC cites to significantly reduce the overall power requirements of these boxes in the home. One opportunity exists with the EPA Energy Star program to specify new targets for efficient STB’s to meet, as well as to qualify STB’s to these standards. The second and most important strategy to minimize “Total Energy Consumption” (TEC) in the home is to employ devices that can go into a much lower power, deep sleep mode when not in use. This feature allows for true strides to be made in lowering overall power usage in the home. What we do as a society today with STB’s is the equivalent of “leaving the lights on in a room even when they are not needed”. It seems that with STB’s the assumption is that we need to leave them powered on and fully capable continuously, and that anything short of that is too a great an inconvenience for consumers to justify the energy savings an efficient device might create.

In part 2 of this blog series, we will discuss what current broadband and telecommunications providers in the U.S. and E.U. are doing about the STB efficiency imperative and what kind of traction this issue is getting in the media.

Co-Authored by: Chuck Carroll and Lew Rakowsky