A new report released by the Consumer Electronics Association claims that electronic device power consumption has dropped markedly in the past few years, driven by increased efficiency and changing consumer habits. There’s an interesting question over whether or not the downward trend is a momentary blip or a serious sign of change — and there’s evidence pointing in both directions.

Why consumers are drawing less energy

First, let’s talk about the positives. One reason power consumption has come down is because the devices we use draw significantly less power than they used to. Modern LCDs draw far less energy than CRTs (and newer HDTVs tend to draw less power than the older models at a given screen size).

This is also the case in desktop computing, where the gains over the past eight years have been enormous. Old reviews at websites like the Tech Report show the Core 2 Duo E6700 (65nm, released in 2006) idling at 123W and drawing 156W at full load (total system power). Intel’s modern Core i7-4770K, in contrast, idles at 27W (without a GPU), 41W with a GPU installed, and runs full bore at 102W. Even the Core i7-4960X, with its quad-channel memory controller and six CPU cores, tops out at 145W. That’s a huge improvement considering the additional cores and clock speed gains between the 2006 and 2014 platforms.

As important as compute efficiency gains are, however, they’re far from the only reason for the shift. We’re also seeing consumers move towards alternate computing platforms like tablets and smartphones — and those devices tend to use just 2-5W of energy — less than 20% the power of even the most efficient mainstream PCs.

The improvement may not last

There are several reasons to think these short-term shifts are nothing but a blip. First, there’s the well-researched rebound effect — when device efficiency increases, people tend to use it more often to compensate. Thus, if your car is more fuel efficient, you’re likely to drive more often or live farther from your job. If your light bulbs draw just a fraction of a standard incandescent bulb’s power, you’re more likely to leave them on.

On the technological side, meanwhile, you have the recent launch of new game consoles and the nascent consumer debut of 4K TV. It’s not clear how much additional power 4K displays will draw — reviewing the data on 1080p TVs shows that even at the same screen size and technology type, the amount of power drawn at the wall can vary by two to three times between various models. It’s safe to bet that 4K displays will draw more power, but exactly how much more is still an open question.

We’ve covered the power consumption of new consoles before — the Xbox One and PS4 use dramatically more power than their predecessor, with the Xbox One’s idle mode a particularly egregious offender. As the new consoles come online, they’re going to help reverse the downward trend we’ve seen in recent years.

Will it be enough to completely counteract the improvements? I suspect not — as new consoles replace old models we’ll see a simultaneous shift to next-generation manufacturing techniques and better power management that should bring current power consumption to a lower level.

Rebound effect or continued reduction? The complicated cloud

The final bit of the puzzle is whether the shift towards cloud computing can produce a long-term decline in power consumption. Using a device with desktop-level power consumption for email, web surfing, and other corporate tasks is wasteful — even an efficient system may consume six to eight times the power a tablet might draw even with a keyboard and mouse attached. Shifting these tasks into the cloud could drastically improve power efficiency — instead of 500 computers each handling one individual’s email accounts, you can deploy a centralized system and push data to power efficient smartphones or tablets.

The cloud actually has the potential to reshape power consumption in America, though you’d have to expand out past consumer electronics to track the effects across the whole economy. If downloading a movie from Netflix to a local tablet means fewer people visit movie theaters, you’ve created a situation in which a device that consumes less than 10W of power is standing in for a fully air-conditioned and staffed location.

Have any of you made changes to your electronics to cut power consumption or shifted your storage strategies to improve efficiency? Sound off and let us know.