out choosing products.
Katzmaier noted that efficiency for TVs doesn't come up often at the consumer level. "Getting people to be thrilled about advances in technologies is more about getting people to think about efficiency at a whole home level," he stated.
When someone saves $20 a year on electricity with a TV model that costs $200 more, they aren't going to see the financial benefits. At least not yet. As Horowitz pointed out, manufacturers don't pay the costs to run the device. They pay the cost to make the device, and if making it more energy efficient means a more expensive manufacturing process and without consumers really caring, they aren't too excited about making that change. So the big savings for consumers comes not from individual purchases but from a whole house approach to monitoring and managing energy use. The vast majority of homeowners don't have this in place yet, so the savings on individual products is still low on the priority list.
Despite energy efficiency improvements in devices, our energy consumption continues to climb because we simply are buying more and more gadgets. My question is if a move to having a connected home, will we decrease our consumption of new electronics because we see the impact on our energy bill of having and additional dvice plugged into the wall? A girl can dream.
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