Energy Tags, Part II

On Friday, I posted about Energy Guide tags I’ve seen while TV shopping. They look like this:

While I’m glad to be able to tell at a glance which TVs are likely to be more costly long-term, I’m puzzled. The estimated energy cost of this TV is only $19 annually, roughly $1.58 a month. Really? I have no doubt that the people who provide the estimate know their stuff, but I would’ve thought this -- or any other TV -- would drain a lot more juice annually than $19 worth.

According to the tag, this estimate is based on five hours of viewing daily. At our house, the TV is on closer to seven hours a day. Maybe even eight, but let’s split it down the middle and say 7.5. Based on the above estimate and our TV usage, if we owned this TV, it would cost us about $28.50 a year, or $2.57 a month. Even if we have the TV on 10 hours a day, that would be only $38 a year and about $3.15 a month.

In an effort to trim our energy usage, I recently pulled the plug -- permanently -- on our bedroom TV. It was a 19-inch analog set, which we used only for checking the weather report in the mornings, so it was on for maybe 15 minutes a day. And even then, we didn’t turn it on every day. I have no clue how it compares in energy usage to the one that goes with the tag above, but even if it uses double the amount, I find it a little disheartening that the best I can hope for by unplugging it is about a $3 monthly savings, especially when our electric bill averages about $130 a month.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take any savings, because the $3 a month I don’t spend on electricity can go toward our debt. I was just hoping for a bigger impact than that.