California utilities plug energy-efficient electronics

Californians' love for electronic gear takes a heavy toll on electricity bills, sucking up 20 percent of total power consumption.

Utilities Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) on Thursday announced a program to steer consumers toward more energy-efficient electronics.

Called the Business and Consumer Alliance, the program will identify which TVs, desktop computers, and monitors are the most energy efficient based on industry standards, such as EnergyStar.

Merchandise in stores will be labeled with either a "Save" or a "Save More" label to highlight energy-efficient equipment, said a representative from PG&E, which is dedicating $7 million this year to the program.

Best Buy, Sears Holding Company, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Dell, and Lenovo are participating in the program which the utilities estimate will save 380 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity through 2011. That's enough to power more than 55,000 typical homes.

The hope is to drive demand for efficient consumer electronics at the retail level, which could prompt manufacturers to invest in energy-efficient improvements.

PG&E anticipates that the program will have more money dedicated to it in the coming years and cover more categories of products.

Right now, the biggest energy consumers are flat-screen TVs and small-office equipment. But set-top boxes and electronics chargers are quickly becoming bigger factors in residential electricity use, the PG&E representative said.

Energy consumption from consumer electronics is expected to grow at close to 11 percent annually from 2005 to 2010.

[ltoones]

So that's why my state tax rebate check was late.

[Simplicius]

I imagine you think you are funny or something. You aren't. Initiatives like this make people *save* money. <br />You may want to work on your reading-comprehension skills.

[carlhage]

There is a big opportunity to save a lot of money in energy bills (and hold off new power plants) with better purchases of appliances. The problem is that the "energy-star" rating is often way behind and in many cases doesn't measure and compare typical energy use. In some cases, measurements are often based only on standby power (e.g. for a TV) or the efficiency of the power supply (e.g. for computer). A 20W laptop with 85% non-energy star power supply is a lot better than a 150W 90% energy star desktop. What is needed is a standard to measure typical use, then publish the number in $/year or something. CNet could help by always including energy cost in the information provided in reviews. The yellow stickers on a refrigerator work so well-- I can't understand why we don't do the same for all major appliances.

[matthewbulat]

Consider some of the following to save electricity.<br />LED back lite LCD Monitors and TVs.<br />Turning on Computer Power Management for all computers.<br />Have a USB controlled power board for all your computer peripherals to switch completely off with the PC.<br />Have a master slave power board for the TV and entertainment equipment. When the TV is off its slaves also turn off. E.g. DVD player, set top box, Hifi gear.<br />In Australia there is a list of the top Energy Star appliances to compare against.<br />I have more suggestions at www.matthewb.id.au