The Department of Energy recently signed an agreement with the cable and consumer electronics industries, and energy efficiency groups in order to create new energy standards for set-top boxes that will result in energy savings in over 90 million homes across the U.S. These new voluntary standards are also predicted to increase the energy efficiency of set-top boxes between 10% and 45% by 2017. The agreement between the groups applies to all of boxes including pay-TV providers: cable, satellite, and telco.
The Consumer Electronics Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the Appliance Standards Awareness Project are a part of the new agreement with the following multichannel video providers: Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, Bright House Networks, and CenturyLink.
According to the voluntary agreement, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Verizon, Charter, AT&T, Cablevision, Bright House Networks, CenturyLink, Cisco, Motorola, EchoStar, and Arris will create new set-tops that meet Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star 3.0 levels. This means that all new devices will be 45% more efficient than previous set-top boxes. In addition to these new standards, cable operators will include a light-sleeper mode to the 10 million DVRs currently in use, and satellite companies will incorporate a power-down option in 90% of the set-tops they distribute.
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