Thanks to the enhancements in energy conservative products, consumer electronics consume far less energy than ever when comparing them to the technology in the home, of years past. A 2013 “Energy Consumption of Consumer Electronics in U.S. Homes” study revealed that todays devices only account for 12% of consumed electricity in homes.
No more angry dads spending their days yelling at their kids for forgetting to turn the lights off behind them. Although, energy can still be wasted by leaving such devices on, the difference is minimal in comparison.
Thanks to programs such as Energy Star, there has been such an awareness created for energy usage in everything we plug into the wall. Products don’t just “consume” power, but manage their own power consumption to minimize waste. Technology is being built to require less power to operate with and to produce less heat in such operation. In the end, it all beings to add up.
Because of this, consumer technology in homes has been on the rise. The adoption of newer technologies and abandonment of the old, only gives rise to these improvements. Of the 12% of energy used, 30% of it consists of TVs. As more people lean towards replacing their old CRT analog TVs with today’s more efficient screens, that 12% will continue to fall even more.
There has been a 9% drop in the last 3 years alone, as 2010’s percentage weighed in at 13.2%.
In 2013, the study found that there were 3.8 billion consumer electronic devices being used in homes, a total that is nearly 1 billion higher than the study found in 2010 (and yet, the total energy used was still less in 2013 than three years before it.
It won’t be long until devices power themselves with no need to be plugged into the wall. I am sure that we all look forward to that.
