The odd good news on Energy Guide labels

By Rob Cockerham | Updated May 15, 2015

Have you looked at the EnergyGuide labels on televisions lately? I saw a bunch last week and noticed something: All of the TVs are below average.

It's not a bad thing. It's good... or useless and deceptive, depending on your point of view.

All of the televisions at Folsom, California's Walmart use less than the lowest energy ratings known to Energy Guide federal ratings. Next to the big "$10" on the label below, there is a little graph showing the cost range of similar models, in this case 40"-44" televisions. The graph spans the range of $43 to $15 yearly energy cost, but this TV is off-the-chart! This is great. I can understand an outlier, but I checked out 20 televisions in this store. All but one were off the graph!

I assumed this situation is a result of federal rating being based on earlier television technolgies, such as cathode tube or projection TVs, but supposedly the numbers on these labels are updated every five years. There weren't any cathode ray tube TVs being sold five years ago. Remember that digital converter box give-away? That was in 2008 and 2009.

When the labels look like this, they are all good news!

It's undeniable these charts provide some great information for consumers, with or without an accurate cost range graph.

It's pretty exciting how efficient our display screens are getting. Maybe in the next update they'll have to start the chart in the negative range!