A study by the National Resources Defense Council found that in 2010, the 160 million set-top boxes around the country consumed about 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, roughly the annual output of nine coal-fired power plants, costing consumers $3 billion. Some boxes can consume more power than a good-size refrigerator.
The E.P.A. runs a voluntary program that gives an “Energy Star” certificate to products that meet targets that will be ratcheted up over time. But the program has yet to sign up the big cable companies. Until they commit to energy efficiency, manufacturers are unlikely to throw themselves headlong into the quest for better technology.
The boxes eat up so much power because they typically run almost around the clock; as much as two-thirds of their consumption comes during times when they are idle. When asked why, one manufacturing company said nobody ever asked them to use less power.
In Europe, where power costs more, manufacturers include a deep-sleep function that allows the box to save power when idle. American companies are hesitant to embrace the sleep-function technology because these machines could take several minutes to reboot.
But power management in set-top boxes certainly poses no greater challenge than in cellphones. Like cable boxes, phones are always connected to a network, yet they sleep when idle, wake up instantaneously when called upon and serve as portals for all kinds of data.
The service providers who buy and distribute set-top boxes have largely ignored the power problem because the costs are borne by customers. To focus the industry on efficiency, the federal government might have to regulate the boxes the same way it does household appliances like refrigerators, which use only a fraction of the power they consumed before regulation. Then this conservation problem surely would be solved.