Any recommendations for the most energy efficient TV that won't cost the earth up-front?

Coffeekup

MoneyMon555 said:

Looking to make some savings on electric bill (aren't we all?) and the only one I I have left (other than not use any at all) is to get a more efficient TV, as this one is 10 years old.

I would happily do this myself on suppliers web sites (AO, Currys, Amazon etc) but they do not make it easy to do usage comparison and in many cases just don't provide it on the spec.

Personally I wouldn't get too involved with the A+-G rating, personally I wish they would do away with it.
All you need to know is the usage in numbers but as you say not easy to see and comparing is a no no. It's almost like "they" don't want you to know the numbers... "they" do like telling us lots of other numbers tho.... how colours it has, how many cubic meters it holds, how many terabytes or ram it has, how many watts the speakers have.... But the one thing you want to see you and can't and they replaced it with a letter....
Same goes for white goods, and almost all electrical good's in the home.

Find a tv at a price you like, check the tech specs page the numbers are usually hidden in there.

Few things to consider how much tv do you watch, want same size tv, bigger one's use more energy obviously.
OLED appear to be the most efficient but they only come in what I consider large sizes 55"+ iirc.

What's your budget? No point spending £1000+ as it'll eat what you would have saved In bills.

Then are you getting rid of a perfectly good tv? that may last another 10 years and never need to buy a new one.

How far you have you gone into saving your bills?
Turn tv and other living room appliances off every night and everytime you leave the house.?
Same with microwave, washing machine etc. Are you gonna buy a more efficient tv and have the tumble dryer in use? 

MoneyMon555

Rodders53 said:

First make, model and screen size of your current TV current TV? Then we can find out how much it uses.  Then, and only then, can you work out if an alternative TV would save any electricity at all!

New energy labelling has been introduced so that most TVs are now G
https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1614946171 
but they actually consume a varying amount of electricity and you need to look at the numbers in detail to identify savings.

Note a 1000 hours time = a little under 3 hours a day for one year in normal use?  

My lounge Plasma TV has a C rating (but on the old scheme) so maxes out at 400W, average 185W - 257 kWh per annum according to the maker.
My bedroom set is A and consumes 100W on the old spec - but is G rated today, and has two figures: 58 kWh/1000 hours for normal and 68 kWh/1000 h for HDR use under the new enery rating label.
My plasma might be 185 kWh per 1000 hours but would still be a G on the new rating system?

Ignore the letters and look at the precise kiloWatt-hours / 1000 hours of use numbers from the specification sheets / energy labels!

NB 0.5 W standby on a TV is 4.4 kWh per annum or 3.9 kWh extra (<4  units of electricity) if you watch 1000 hours of TV, so how important it is to turn off when not in use is a matter of personal choice.

I've just replaced one of my central heating pumps with a model that consumes 33 Watt max and the old one used 90 W...  Even that "large" saving will take many years to pay back the £105 it cost me (ignoring my labour costs).  It's better environmentally to use the extra electricity rather than chuck a working TV into landfill? (discuss)

Some great points there, thank you. And a very good discussion topic at the end there.

My thinking is, the TV is well over 10 years old (could be 15 years I cant recall) and has noticeable 'patches' on it when it displays dark colours, so I would be thinking about replacing around now (it also seems to get incredibly hot, which had me thinking it must be consuming quite a lot of power) - the move wouldn't be provoked purely by trying to get a more efficient one as such. Besides, if I took it to the recycle centre oe charity shop, it wouldn't be going in the land fill.

Rodders53

Coffeekup said:

Personally I wouldn't get too involved with the A+-G rating, personally I wish they would do away with it.

The Energy labels ALL have the kWh usage numbers on them and must be displayed at POS in stores.  They must all use the same test methods to generate the numbers so are comparable...
Slightly more tricky to find the label info online in some cases but also available there.
It's one of those "least worst case" things as if this labelling wasn't mandated the makers would not all be comparable.
Just like car mpg ratings

MoneyMon555 said:

My thinking is, the TV is well over 10 years old (could be 15 years I cant recall) and has noticeable 'patches' on it when it displays dark colours, so I would be thinking about replacing around now (it also seems to get incredibly hot, which had me thinking it must be consuming quite a lot of power) - the move wouldn't be provoked purely by trying to get a more efficient one as such. Besides, if I took it to the recycle centre oe charity shop, it wouldn't be going in the land fill.

Possibly nearing end of life - or just that you are seeing some picture coding artefacts?
Make and model number would definitely help.

I'd recommend reading the AVForums guides/discussions to choosing new TVs... as they seem very knowledgeable and I've based past purchases on their advice.  
https://www.avforums.com/threads/my-links-guides.2116485/ is a good place to start.
Your screen size and budget matters (as might whether you are coming from plasma or LCD)...  There's no 'one size fits all' for new TVs.

I'd suggest you don't get hung up on the power consumption aspect - good pictures and sound are the most important when getting a shortlist, and then the power use can be used to whittle that down further.  

Personal auditioning / demo in a proper store with demo room is recommended (if a high value set).

daaave

It’s also worth noting that all of the (small) amount of energy consumed by a tv will turn to heat, so the energy is not completely wasted for about half the year. 

Think of it as a little micro-heater in your living room.

As others have said, the energy efficiency of modern tvs don’t really matter in the scheme of things. Focus your energy(!) on stuff like insulation and an energy efficient boiler instead, would be my advice.