Power consumption isn’t the first thing that enters your mind when buying a TV. Picture quality is a big one. How many different inputs it has. And the most importantly – whether its just a bit bigger than the new TV your work mate just bought! 
Its worthwhile thinking about power consumption though. I’ve just been trawling a few manufacturers’ sites, trying to get an idea of the differing power consumptions. Obviously, the big difference is between technologies – CRT, LCD, or Plasma. Comparisons are a bit tricky – Plasma TVs are universally at the big end of the size spectrum, followed by LCD, followed by good, old CRTs. In my quick google around the Net, I couldn’t find a size that was available in all technologies, but for the purposes of comparison I’ve looked at 32″ (which you can get in both LCD and CRT), and 42″ for the plasma.
From a quick sample, you’re looking at the following sort of power consumption:
- 32″ CRT – 220 Watts
- 32″ LCD – 170 Watts
- 42″ Plasma – 370 Watts
To put this into a sample scenario, lets say you watch television 6 nights a week. A lot of people turn on the box around 6:30pm, and watch till around 10:30pm. But, you do take that trip to the coast each year for a fortnight. So, over a year, you have the TV on for 50 weeks x 6 days x 4 hours = 1200 hours. (Wow! Thats 50 full days, or 150 8 hour working days. We have to start getting out more!)
What does that mean in terms of power consumption? Over the year, we’re looking at the following:
- CRT: 264 KwH/year
- LCD: 204 KwH/year
- Plasma: 444KwH/year
Here in Canberra we currently pay 9.9c/KwH for our electricity. So, it costs around $20/year for the CRT, $26/year for the LCD, and $44/year for the plasma. Obviously electricity prices can vary widely from area to area – this just gives an idea.
Aside from cost, though, there’s the environmental issue to consider. Depending on your electricity provider, there’s typically 1.44 Kg CO2 produced for every KwH, so in the case of the Plasma TV, that’s over half a tonne of CO2 per year… 
Just one more thing to think about, as if TV buying wasn’t complicated enough…