EPA Urged to Give ‘More Explicit Rationale’ for Energy Use Cap in TV Spec
The Consortium for Energy Efficiency urged the EPA to “develop a more explicit rationale” for the energy use cap it has proposed for large TVs in version 5.0 of the Energy Star specification that’s set to take effect in 2012. The consumption cap will have “broader potential implications” across the Energy Star program, the group said. So the agency should come up with a “set of criteria that define the circumstances under which a consumption cap might be appropriate for an Energy Star product,” it said.
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The consortium’s members include U.S. and Canadian utilities, state energy offices and environmental groups. The group’s consumer electronics committee develops specifications for CE products that utilities use to devise incentive programs for highly efficient products. Its TV spec was revised recently and the group wants to develop an advanced standard for cable, satellite and IPTV set-top boxes.
The CE industry has opposed the cap of 108 watts for TVs larger than 50 inches, saying it would mean virtually shutting out larger screen sets from Energy Star. The industry told the agency that an energy cap represents a policy shift for Energy Star, from being an energy efficiency program to one that focuses on energy use. As a compromise, the CEA and the Plasma Display Coalition proposed raising the cap to 147 watts for TVs 60 inches and larger. The EPA said it would revisit the requirements before version 5.0 goes into effect in May 2012. The consortium initially had concerns about the EPA setting “future performance levels” given the difficulty of predicting future market conditions, it said in comments.
But the EPA has since provided research data on the “current and future state” of the TV market and voiced willingness to “respond to changing market conditions,” it said. So the CEE has “confidence that EPA will endeavor to conscientiously examine implications to the brand, other programs areas under the Energy Star umbrella, as well other stakeholder groups,” it said.
The CEE said it also has concerns about the “luminance” requirement, another controversial part of the draft specification that the industry has opposed as being “unnecessary and premature.” The consortium had expressed reservations about the luminance requirement because it believed it could “result in a situation where manufacturers just meet the Energy Star level rather than achieve the highest efficiency level possible.” It had urged the EPA to implement a luminance requirement only after it determined that the “potential problem is a real one and that the solution would fully address it,” the consortium said. “CEE continues to believe that the more responsible course of action is to further study this issue prior to acting,” it said. Since the EPA has included the luminance requirement in the final draft, the agency should collect more data from TV makers and consumers to assess the “effect of this provision,” it said.
The CEE’s position on the draft TV specs is supported by the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, PacifiCorp and Cape Light Compact, in addition to utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric Co. - - Dinesh Kumar