Give me a break! How turning off the television can give your TV and the Earth a break

Essential Questions: How can reducing the amount of television that I watch daily reduce my energy consumption? Additionally, how can reducing the amount of television that I watch daily leave me more time to do things that I want to be a priority in my life?

Existing Information: Our Sharp 10” LED television consumes 188 watts of power Our Motorola FIOSs Box uses approximately 30 watts of power while in use Utility companies measure energy using kilowatt hours, which which is the amount of kilowatts used in an hour, and is calculated: kWh = wh/1000 * h (kilowatt hour = watt hour/1000 * hours) ( The phantom load of a digital cablebox averages between 13 and 30 watts, and of an LED television is between 1 and 13 watts (

Data Needed for Study: Number of hours of television I watch per week Wattage of television and cablebox while they are turned on Wattage of television and cablebox while they are turned off (“phantom load”) Cost of kilowatt hour for our utility company, PS&G

Methodology: 1.Record number of hours of television watched per day 2.Add up the number of hours per week 3.Calculate the kilowatt hours, which is how utility companies typically measure a household’s energy consumption, per week for the television and cablebox 4.Calculate the kilowatt hours for the phantom load of the television and cablebox 5.Calculate savings of kilowatt hours and dollars when television watching is reduced by one hour a day

Data

other Phantom load Television watching

What would happen if you turned me off sometimes?

Conclusions My own television watching accounts for about 9.8 kWh/month, or 1.9% of our total energy usage, if we assume a total monthly usage of 500 kWh/month. The phantom load of one television and cablebox accounts for about kWh/month, or 4% of our total energy usage. Reducing my personal television watching by one hour/day will decrease our energy usage by kWh/month, or 1.2% of our total electricity usage. If 10 households decreased their television watching by one hour/day, the total savings per year would be about kWh, and if 10,000 households did it, the savings would be about 793,520 kWh per year.

So... Reducing a household’s television watching will reduce their electricity usage slightly. I need to gather more data over the year in order to calculate an average for the hours of television I watch per week. Phantom loads are also responsible for energy usage, and if left plugged in twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, may sometimes use more electricity than running appliances, such as the television. We need to find additional ways to reduce electricity usage, such as investigating the wattage used by the light bulbs we use, appliances such as the air-conditioner and researching new energy efficient appliances, for example to replace our twenty-five year old dishwasher!

References (2013). KW and kWh explained. Retrieved from Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2013). American time use survey summary. Retrieved from Katzmaier, D. (2013). What you need to know about TV power consumption. Retrieved from consumption/ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. (2013). Ranges of stand-by power [Data file]. Retrieved fromhttp://standby.lbl.gov/summary-chart.html Ohler, J. B. (2010). Digital community, digital citizen. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. U.S. Department of Energy. (2012). Estimating appliance and home electric energy use. Retrieved from Watt. (2013). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from Worcester, F. (2010, December 8). Project #4: Energy self-study. Message posted to