We all know to turn off our TVs at the end of day, at least that was the message in the late 90s, but is it so true today?
Many LCD TVs are normally popped onto standby mode when not in use, few of us in reality will actually switch it off properly. Switching an LCD TV off at the on / off button does not actually turn it off, it puts it into a lesser power mode than standby. Only turning the TV off at the wall socket will actually take the power consumption down to zero.
Further to this, most of us would have to take some serious yoga instructions to reach the wall socket as it is down the back of cabinet or some other impractical point to reach on a daily basis.
There are plenty of rumours drifting around about how much power a TV uses if it’s left on standby. A large majority of these rumours stem from the 90’s when we all had CRT screens (the big, fat, deep kind. Not the nice flat LCD and plasma screens of today). The old fashioned CRTs consumed about 25% power when in standby, but engineering has improved so this is no longer the case.
Tests done by Energy Saving Trust have shown than most LCD TVs (averaging 32” in size) consume in watt hours of the TV in standby to be the equivalent of taking approximately 2000 hours before it had used the same amount of electricity as it takes to boil a litre of water in a standard kettle.
So, just to dispel that myth and to remind that some TVs do actually have a standby button and a proper on / off switch. The on / off switch is normally located on the edge of the screen on most LCD TVs. On some others it maybe in a different location and a quick browse of the first few pages of the TVs manual will often give a diagrammatic location on where you can find it.
