Game Console Uses as Much Energy as Two Fridges, Senate Committee Told

A videogame console uses as much electricity as two refrigerators if it isn’t powered down after use, and mandatory standards may be needed in addition to voluntary industry efforts to curb the devices’ energy use, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was told Wednesday. The committee was considering four energy-efficiency bills including the Green Gaming Act of 2009 (S-1699), which would require the Department of Energy to study the energy use of game consoles and decide whether standards are needed.

"Some consumers leave their game consoles on 24 hours a day and depending on the console they could use as much energy as two refrigerators or $160 per year in electricity costs,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the author of S-1699. Console makers are working with Energy Star on voluntary standards, he said. “Voluntary standards may well be enough,” he said, but his bill would ensure that the DOE “considers whether mandatory minimum standards are also needed.”

Menendez said he had worked with console makers Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, the Entertainment Software Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council to develop the legislation, and all support the measure. About 40 percent of American homes have video game consoles, said Steve Nadel, the executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, in answer to a question from Menendez. If the devices are left on all the time they can use 100 to 150 watts, he said, and that’s “really an enormous source of energy use and one that’s really grown in the last decade."

Advanced power-management features and more-efficient components and designs could cut gaming power use by half, Nadel said in testimony. Although the Entertainment Software Association supports the measure, the CEA has come out in opposition, he said. If the DOE decides against standards, a “follow-up study must be conducted within three years of the initial determination,” he said.

The legislation would tell the DOE to decide whether minimum energy efficiency standards for consoles are called for, but it doesn’t “specify the criteria that the DOE should use in determining if standards should be established,” said Kathleen Hogan, the department’s assistant secretary for energy efficiency. The department’s authority to set energy standards for new consumer products is limited by “threshold criteria” that their “average per household energy use” in the U.S. exceeds 150 kilowatt hours for any 12-month period, she said. If standard-setting is dependent on that threshold it’s “not clear at this time if video game consoles would satisfy this criteria,” Hogan said.

The department and EPA are looking at how to structure a top-tier program within Energy Star that EPA will manage, Hogan said. Creating a Super Star category in Energy Star is among the proposals made under a memorandum of understanding between the agencies. This kind of top-tier program could give companies “key marketing positions for ultra-efficient products that would reduce consumers energy bills,” she said. Department analyses show that many high-efficiency products are technically possible but not yet on the market, Hogan said. Cutting-edge TV technologies can cut energy use 70 percent from CRT TVs’, she said. “Yet, there is not program to help consumers easily identify products in this top tier of performance,” Hogan said. “Creating a viable market niche for cutting-edge technologies will provide a setting in which experimenters and innovators can test their ideas, evaluate consumer response to new technologies, and learn how to make cutting-edge technologies cheaper and economically viable for a larger market.”