Plasma Power Usage?

czechmaniac77

Standard Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2005
Messages
40
Reaction score
1
Points
43
I am a week or so from pulling the trigger on a new Panny and was wondering
if plasma's really use a as much power as i've heard. Any owners care to
chime in. Have your electric bills gone up. If it makes a small difference
on my bill i won't care but if it doubles it i won't be too happy. Any input
greatly appreciated as usual!
 
It's hard to say, what with the price increases we've had lately :mad:
In fairness though, they do use a fair bit of juice.
My Hitachi 42" is rated at 380W max.
If you call it a third of a kW/hour, you might be able to work out how much it will cost to run, if you can actually find out how much your company charges.
I looked for the same thing on the net last week and couldn't get an actual price :thumbsdow

Lcds use a bit less, but there's not much in it.

Of course it all depends how much you actually have it on.
 
I am a week or so from pulling the trigger on a new Panny and was wondering
if plasma's really use a as much power as i've heard. Any owners care to
chime in. Have your electric bills gone up. If it makes a small difference
on my bill i won't care but if it doubles it i won't be too happy. Any input
greatly appreciated as usual!

Hi czechmaniac, not sure about other makes but my Panasonic TH-42PX600 is rated at 261W normal use and 0.3W on standby. When I was deciding which size to get I resarched and found that the TH-50PX600 used 368W but no figure for standby available and the TH-37PX600 was rated at 241W and 0.3W on standby. Also, the PX60 models were rated exactly the same as the PX600 variants.

These are all manufacturers figures, I haven't got one of those smart meters to do my own checks.
 
Thanks for quick responses guys. I think i will buy it regardless. The only time
i will view for long periods might be on the weekends so it should be fine.
There was an interesting article on this on the net , but the study was done
by the plasma display coalition. Hmm. Biased much? Lol. Excuse me if i don't take
their word for it. Check it out. It's an interesting read if nothing else.Its funny you should mention how the electricity prices have gone up. I live in Canada
and they just did the same thing to us.

http://www.plasmadisplaycoalition.org/results/power.php
 
I would also take into consideration what you have now and take that off the figure, so if your TV used 100w now and a plasma 300w in reality its costing you 200w extra, if you see what i mean
 
Plasma power varies dependant on the image being shown.
380W max means the maximum it may consume.
LCD is fairly constant as it uses a back light.
 
I currently have a 21" CRT :eek: which consumes 55 watts. Prior to that there was a 27-incher that pulled in 90 watts.

Basically stepping up to 42 inch plasma would mean a 5 to 6 times increase in maximum power consumption compared to the 21" CRT.

This seems quite a dramatic increase, however I guess if you are that bothered you would sit down & calculate how much this is likely to cost on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. With fluctuating electricity prices it's probably better to calculate on a monthly/quarterly basis to see what the approximate difference is between the equipment you are currently using & what you plan to get.

On an interesting note I've just had a look at the Panasonic Canada website.

Over there they do a TH-42PX75. In the specification it says that the PX75 power consumption is 385 watts. In comparison the UK 42PX70 consumes 270 watts, a 115 watts difference !

Funny thing is the PX75 is branded as being 'Energy Star' compliant :rotfl:
 
Plasma uses about the same amount of power as a CRT per unit screen area. The 42 is about 4 times the screen area of a 21 CRT, maybe a tad more as a proportion of the CRT is not watchable, viewable dimension will be about 19 1/2". A 20" LCD uses about the same as your 21 CRT too. They all do exactly the same thing, so it's not very surprising, even though they may achieve it in different ways. Plasma and CRT both have variable power consumption, LCD does not vary. Watching Harry potter will use significantly less power than Casino Royale, the theory says, as one is dark and the other bright, predominantly. I wonder how strongly that smells of farmyards?
 
I currently have a 21" CRT :eek: which consumes 55 watts. Prior to that there was a 27-incher that pulled in 90 watts.

Basically stepping up to 42 inch plasma would mean a 5 to 6 times increase in maximum power consumption compared to the 21" CRT.

This seems quite a dramatic increase, however I guess if you are that bothered you would sit down & calculate how much this is likely to cost on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. With fluctuating electricity prices it's probably better to calculate on a monthly/quarterly basis to see what the approximate difference is between the equipment you are currently using & what you plan to get.

On an interesting note I've just had a look at the Panasonic Canada website.

Over there they do a TH-42PX75. In the specification it says that the PX75 power consumption is 385 watts. In comparison the UK 42PX70 consumes 270 watts, a 115 watts difference !

Funny thing is the PX75 is branded as being 'Energy Star' compliant :rotfl:


It will use more power in canada because of the voltage difference. I think they have a 110v system si that will increase the poweer consumption. To be fair though, even if it is 380w, its in no way gonna make a significant difference to your electricity bill. It will be like having 4 100w light bulbs on.
 
Mains voltage doesn't dictate the power consumption - the electronics inside the TV do.
If the figures are accurate, it could mean the Canadian model uses a different set-up to the UK's.
It might even be a case of one running PFC (power factor correction) and the other not.
The only way to know for sure would be to measure the actual consumption.
 
The content displayed on the screen does make a difference to the amount of energy used in plasma display - it increases with APL.

In Calafornia the ISF have been commisioned to study the energy consumption of displays and amazingly found calibrated displays to use as much as 33% less energy with an average of around 15%.

The largest savings were made on LCD displays with adjustable backlight controls. It is pretty obvious that a lower light level will need less power. In the world of plasma, Fujitsu and the commercial Panasonic displays have a drive contrast control which is used to adjust the luminance output of the display without affecting the dynamic range of the underlying video signals. Setting these correctly does have a noticeable impact on power consumption.

For those who feel this is really an issue, Maplin sell plug in power meters (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&source=2001&doy=22m4 code = L61AQ) which let you easily monitor the display consumption over time. It can be interesting to see what the content and the various controls actually do to the power used!!!

HTH

Neil
 
It will use more power in canada because of the voltage difference. I think they have a 110v system si that will increase the poweer consumption.
As pjskel has stated, this is simply not true. Assuming that it has a power supply of equal efficiency, it will draw a higher current, but the power consumption will not be higher.
 
Watching a movie or normal TV there is little difference between the average power consumption of Plasma and LCD of the same screen size-
 
It will use more power in canada because of the voltage difference. I think they have a 110v system si that will increase the poweer consumption. To be fair though, even if it is 380w, its in no way gonna make a significant difference to your electricity bill. It will be like having 4 100w light bulbs on.


I'm not sure if that's the correct reason for it using more power because of a difference in voltage. In any case the appliance with simply draw in 110 or 230 volts and convert this via the internal transformer to a voltage suited to the internal components of the TV.

The Panasonic TH-42PH9 is rated as 330 watts in the UK. The same model being sold for the Canadian market which looks to be the UK model is showing 345 watts - only 15 watts difference with this model.

I'm not an expert electrician but thought it was the other way round after seeing a couple of low wattage appliances in Canada - iron & kettle :rotfl: 1000 watts each - which are usually much higher in the UK, around 2000 -2300 watts.
 
I've got a Panny TH42PX60 plasma and a power meter, so I'm able to tell you how much power it uses. In standby the panel uses 17 watts (the 0.3W in the manual is a little optimistic!). In use it varies according to the the screen mode and the material being watched. The best mode for me was 'auto' which uses about 200W, then cinema at 240W, then the default setting of 'normal' at 310W and finally the horribly overbright 'dynamic' at 340W.

So there you have it, set it up correctly and it uses 200W.
 
In standby the panel uses 17 watts (the 0.3W in the manual is a little optimistic!)
Wow - was that with it cool, all the fans off (if there are any?)
 
Looking in the Panny tech specs (online manuals), the power consumption for 50PX70 uses average of 370W the 42PX70 average 270W. For completness, the 103" uses 1,500W :eek:
 
I also found this interesting so I put my metering plug on to the 42PH9.

100 IRE White Window = 210 W
100 IRE Raster = 290 W
0 IRE Raster = 90 W

Standby = < 0.5 W

Remember it is importnt to say what was on the screen to give some meaning to the measurements.

Neil
 
Raster is AKA a Full Field Pattern. Basically a uniform colour and intensity across the entire screen area.

Neil
 
In standby the panel uses 17 watts (the 0.3W in the manual is a little optimistic!).

Could the inbuilt Freeview tuner be responsible for this? If it is outputting a signal to the scart all of the time for an external device it would use more power.
 
I also found this interesting so I put my metering plug on to the 42PH9.

100 IRE White Window = 210 W
100 IRE Raster = 290 W
0 IRE Raster = 90 W
Standby = < 0.5 W

Neil

So using a typical 10 pence per kilowatt-hour price, you plasma will cost you less than 3 pence per hour of watching versus less than 1 pence per hour than your CRT used to cost you.

A bit more maths:

Watching 10 hours of TV a day = 30 pence per day
365 days a year of 10 hours a day ~= £110 per year vs about £30 for the CRT.

Yan

P.S. This £110 per year might actually be very hard to afford because by watching 10 hours a day 365 days a year, you will probably not have a job anymore :)

P.P.S. I'll neglect the standby costs if you don't mind apart from telling that the stupid pseudo-green "unplug-at-the-wall" campaign is just stupid. Anyone with a calculator can work out that you'd save more energy by going to the loo in the dark than you would by unplugging a 0.5 watt standby TV. Actually, that's a thought: I'll start a new green campaign: "Save the planet! Go to the loo in the dark!"
 
Some good (and funny) points :thumbsup:

So I take it, it's safe to assume we're not talking megabucks whatever :smashin:
 
P.P.S. I'll neglect the standby costs if you don't mind apart from telling that the stupid pseudo-green "unplug-at-the-wall" campaign is just stupid. Anyone with a calculator can work out that you'd save more energy by going to the loo in the dark than you would by unplugging a 0.5 watt standby TV. Actually, that's a thought: I'll start a new green campaign: "Save the planet! Go to the loo in the dark!"


I agree.

All this global warming business prompting charity concerts (I fail to see the point of that one :rolleyes: ) is just loopy ! And I just wonder what the money from charging for aircraft pollution is going to do - nothing for environmental issues most probably. Lining someone's pockets comes to mind..... :rolleyes:

What bugs me is all this being 'green' stuff over here in Europe with taxes this & taxes that when places like North America can't give a damn & pollute as they please.

What's the point of having evergy saving lightbulbs when you are going to be using a 400 watt TV screen :confused:

Energy saving lighbulbs are good for all-night outdoor illumination. For indoor they are naff giving out unatural illumination.

:oops: forgot this was the plasma forum :D
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom