Televisions

As the price of electricity can change over time and is based on where you live, the cost of running the television is not given on the label.  Instead, the label gives you the amount of energy the television uses in kilowatt hours (kWh). You can calculate the annual cost of running the television by multiplying the kWh figure by the cost of electricity in your area.

For example, the television you are looking at says on the label that it uses 600kWh per year. You know from your electricity bill that the price of electricity in your area is 29 cents per kWh. Simply multiple those two numbers together to find the cost of running that television each year. In this example, that would be $174 per year. Depending on how much you paid for the television, the amount of energy the television uses could equal the cost of the television in only a few years, making it all the more worthwhile to consider the energy efficiency of potential purchases.

The number of stars on the label also helps you compare the efficiency of one television to another of the same size. For example, a 50-inch television with 6 stars is more efficient than another 50-inch television with only 5 stars. Unfortunately, the number of stars cannot be used to compare televisions of different sizes because the size of the televisions is used to calculate how many stars it can receive.

Both the energy consumption and the number of stars can be used together to give you all the information you need about the energy performance of the television. This information can then be taken into account in your purchasing decision.

For example, if two different 55-inch televisions have all the features you want but the energy rating label says Television A is 6 stars and uses 500kWh per year and Television B is 5 stars but uses 575kWh per year, you would choose Television A as it is more efficient than Television B because it uses less energy to get more stars.