How much does it cost to watch TV?

Rising elec­tri­city bills are a heada­che, but when you’re at home most of the time, it’s hard to give up using your elec­tro­nics. Work in the home office and the latest movies on Net­flix also add to the cost of using the equ­ip­ment. In this article, we answer how much it costs to use a TV and how to cal­cu­late TV power con­sump­tion.

Dif­fe­ren­ces in the power con­sump­tion of TVs

To answer the question of how much elec­tri­city new TVs con­sume, you need to com­pare dif­fe­rent fac­tors. LCD liquid cry­stal scre­ens are not the newest, but they will use much less elec­tri­city than the power­ful cathode ray tube (CRT) scre­ens. Pla­sma is also not the che­apest. If you like to sit in front of the TV, it’s worth kno­wing how much a kilo­watt of elec­tri­city costs. This price will depend on your sup­plier – unfor­tu­na­tely, power plants powe­red by rene­wa­ble energy sour­ces are still quite rare, as the nuc­lear power plants. Power con­sump­tion does not vary much between models that have the same screen size and display tech­no­logy.

How to measure the power con­sump­tion of a TV set?

In their pro­duct descrip­tions, manu­fac­tu­rers may spe­cify one of two para­me­ters of power con­sump­tion. The peak power con­sump­tion of the device is a the­ore­ti­cal situ­ation when the TV works at 100% of its capa­bi­li­ties and needs maxi­mum effi­ciency. Howe­ver, usu­ally, infor­ma­tion is given on what the energy con­sump­tion is during the nor­mal ope­ra­tion of the TV set. This can be sup­ple­men­ted with infor­ma­tion about the dec­la­red con­sump­tion in standby mode, i. e. when the TV is swit­ched off but con­nec­ted to the power sup­ply.

Cal­cu­la­ting the cost of elec­tri­city

To cal­cu­late the amo­unt you’ll pay for the ope­ra­tion of your TV and other house­hold applian­ces, you’ll need a cal­cu­la­tor and infor­ma­tion about power con­sump­tion expres­sed in Watts (W). This infor­ma­tion is usu­ally found on the name­plate of your appliance. For exam­ple, our most sophi­sti­ca­ted Roto­lift TV lift would cost 5 cents per hour of use if it con­sumed 80 watts and cost about 67 cents per kilo­watt-hour. And yet you only use it for a few seconds!

In the table, we have pre­sen­ted the ave­rage power con­sump­tion and cost at the cur­rent tariff (approx. 0.67 €/kWh) for 24 hours of unin­ter­rup­ted tele­vi­sion vie­wing. From here you can easily cal­cu­late how much does an hour of wat­ching TV costs – with such a short period the dif­fe­ren­ces are almost imper­cep­ti­ble. We have chec­ked 65-inch TVs in various display tech­no­lo­gies. As you can see, the che­apest, in this case, is a TV with QLED tech­no­logy. Pla­sma or PDP, TV costs us more than three times as much!

How to con­trol your spen­ding on elec­tri­city

Remem­ber that it’s a good idea to have con­trol over your elec­tri­city expen­ses. The bill does not have to be a com­plete sur­prise to you. Start with small steps, like cal­cu­la­ting the cost of wat­ching TV your­self. If you apply this sim­ple for­mula – the TV will no lon­ger sur­prise you by gene­ra­ting a hor­ren­dous bill.

power con­sump­tion[W] * vie­wing time[h] * ope­ra­tor’s rate for 1 kWh[€] / 1000

Exam­ple: If you watch 80 W TV for 4 hours a day and the ope­ra­tor’s rate is 0,65€/kWh, then 80W*4h*0.65€/1000»21€ this enter­ta­in­ment will cost you about 0,21€.

Elec­tri­city bills and time of year

Not without signi­fi­cance in the study of elec­tri­city con­sump­tion is the time of year. Of course, in win­ter eve­nings are lon­ger and glo­omy aura does not enco­urage wal­king, so we spend more time indo­ors using more light and heating and rela­xing in front of the TV. It is worth kno­wing that pla­sma TV sets con­sume energy depen­ding on the image displayed – the dar­ker the image on the screen, the less power the TV set con­sumes. A newer screen such as an LCD always draws the same amo­unt of energy. Remem­ber that your TV also uses elec­tri­city during its standby phase, as do addi­tio­nal devi­ces such as Blu­eRay, DVD, and satel­lite set-top boxes.

Lower elec­tri­city bills

You can start saving money by taking small steps. If you check how much elec­tri­city your old CRT TV con­sumes you will see that it is worth inve­sting in an energy-effi­cient LED, QLED, or OLED TV. Such TVs usu­ally have dif­fe­rent power con­sump­tion depen­ding on how they are used: SDR is the stan­dard mode when wat­ching TV, and HDR is the enhan­ced mode during higher usage, such as con­sole gaming. The power con­sump­tion in standby mode is also lower. We hope that with our help you will not be sur­prised by your elec­tri­city bill this year.