WASHINGTON, DC — American consumers saved approximately US$941 million in energy costs in 2016 as a result of the voluntary set-top box energy conservation agreement among pay-TV providers, manufacturers and energy efficiency advocates in the U.S., according to a new report from independent auditor D+R International.
Over the last four years since the inception of the Voluntary Agreement in 2013, U.S. consumers have saved almost $2.1 billion in energy costs, according to D+R’s report. In addition, over the same four-year period, adoption of the voluntary agreement has resulted in a reduction of 11.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions — equal to removing 2.5 million cars from the road for an entire year, D+R said.
Highlights from D+R’s report where made available in a joint press release from NCTA – The Internet & Television Association and the Consumer Technology Association in the U.S.
Quoted in the press release, Jennifer Thorne Amann, buildings program director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), praised the voluntary agreement for delivering the predicted energy savings.
“When the (U.S.) Department of Energy endorsed the Voluntary Agreement in 2013, it estimated that consumers would save $1 billion per year once the Agreement’s even more rigorous second tier of energy standards became effective in 2017. Savings in 2016 nearly reached that level, and we look forward to even greater savings under the new requirements,” Amann said in the press release.
D+R confirmed the energy savings resulting from the voluntary agreement by reviewing data on every new set-top box purchase in 2016 by pay-TV providers serving 92% of the U.S. market, backed up by an in-depth audit of one randomly selected service provider, as well as energy testing inside customer homes conducted by Intertek Testing Services NA Inc., an internationally recognized energy-testing firm.
Older-model set-top boxes are being rapidly replaced as consumers move to new more energy-efficient DVR architectures that include compelling new features such as improved interfaces, voice remote controls and Netflix integration. As a result, D+R estimates that almost three-quarters of all DVRs in U.S. homes today were purchased under the voluntary agreement’s energy-efficiency standards, and that new DVR models now use an average of 40% less energy than the models purchased prior to the voluntary agreement’s inception.
Among the highlights of D+R’s report, virtually every set-top box purchased in 2016 (98.6%) met the energy efficiency standards of ENERGY STAR Version 3.0, the standard requirement set out in the voluntary agreement. However, even more energy-efficient standards became effective January 1, 2017, and the agreement signatories have committed that 90% of their 2017 purchases will meet these new standards, which are expected to deliver even more annual savings than the $1 billion originally predicted when the agreement was endorsed by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Furthermore, prior to the voluntary agreement, consumers who wanted to use recording functionality throughout their homes typically needed a DVR with an energy-consuming hard drive for each television. Today, millions of consumers use whole-home offerings that require only one DVR, and new cloud DVR offerings are emerging that eliminate the need for a DVR hard drive in the home altogether.
Another positive finding of D+R’s report related to the automatic power down (APD) feature of satellite set-top boxes. The voluntary agreement requires that at least 90% of new satellite set-top boxes include APD, a functionality that puts set-top boxes into an energy-saving sleep mode or turns them off after a period of inactivity. According to D+R’s findings, in 2016, every new satellite set-top box (100%) met this requirement, and cable signatories are also implementing APD.
The Voluntary Agreement was signed in 2012 with the goal of increasing the energy efficiency of set-top boxes, while continuing to innovate and introduce new features. In 2013, leading energy efficiency advocates joined with the pay TV industry in an expanded version of the agreement. Signatories now include all of the major multichannel video service providers representing more than 92% of the U.S. multichannel video market (AT&T/DIRECTV, Comcast, Charter/Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks, DISH, Verizon, Cox, Cablevision, and CenturyLink), major manufacturers (ARRIS/Pace, Technicolor, EchoStar Technologies) and energy-efficiency advocates (Natural Resources Defense Council, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), and the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP)). CableLabs has also played a leading role in researching and developing energy efficiency strategies and in supporting the ongoing implementation of the Voluntary Agreement.
To access D+R International’s full report, click here.
