I can't say cause I've never used a plasma. But I know between DLP and LCD, DLP is the gas hog. Also DLP is the american car, my parents had to replace theirs 2 times over a period of 3 years.
I vaguely remember checking out the wattage and saw that plasma used the most power. They also double up as heaters. I'd say if you lived in a passive house, you would not need any form of heating, other than your plasma!! ollie
Plasma consumption wasn't as bad as many suggested. Because energy use depended on the image shown, the typical output was generally 25% to 33% of the max, which was often mis-stated as the average output. Pretty much, a white screen required max energy, and a black screen minimum. However, even with this consideration, they were generally the worse for their size classes. The new LED LCDs will be similar in that instead of having to set the background light equal to the brightest point on the screen, they are individually set to the brightest few pixes they light up. That should lend itself to lower average power usage than typcial LCDs and similar.
When I first set up my 50-inch plasma (rated at 499 watts, curiously) it was so power hungry that it would trip my circuit breaker when I had my space heater going, or if I tried to print on my laser printer. I finally had to plug the other items into outlets on separate circuits (with extension cords!). I live in a condo with an older breaker panel which for some odd reason does not have a master switch. So, I can't simply replace the 15A breaker with, say, a 20A, nor can I replace the entire panel (because I don't know where the shutoff is).
Please don't simply replace the panel! The danger of upsizing breakers is that you can put in a 20A breaker on a circuit where the wiring melts at 16-17A. Bad juju.
Plasma televisions use about twice as much energy as an LCD set of the same size. And LCDs use roughly the same energy as a CRT except in cases where the LCD has lots of extra features - then they can use 20% more than a comparable CRT. Some plasma sets are rated at 600 watts of power consumption or a bit more. That's 5 amps at standard house current. May not sound like much, but look at the current draw on a window air conditioner and you will see a number right around 5 amps. So watching a plasma TV for 6 hours will ding the electric bill as much as using an air conditioner on max-cool (compressor running) for 6 hours. Regarding circuit breaker replacement ("by peacefrog_0521 So, I can't simply replace the 15A breaker with, say, a 20A, nor can I replace the entire panel (because I don't know where the shutoff is).") A 15A circuit has 14 gauge wire, a 20A circuit has 12 gauge wire. All outlets on a 20A circuit must be 20A rated (they have a notch in one of slots), so there are new outlets and wiring involved. And that 12 gage wire is a bee-hutch to work with because it doesn't like to make the tight bends necessary to create a little loop around the little gold and silver screws on the electrical fixtures. Replacing the breaker alone defeats the purpose of the breaker and is definitely in the Russian Roulette category.
Yes - and article like this prompet this poll and went so far as to call plasma TVs the FSP's of the home, although they are overlooking the A/C.
Heating and cooling is absolutely the major energy drain, at least in my home. Especially considering how much TV we watch (couple hours a week?) on a ~150W CRT HDTV and the fact that this house has only electricity as an energy source. To put numbers on it: My best months for energy use are typically April and October, since the house typically needs little heating or cooling. That kind of energy bill will be in the range of 450kWh all-in. My worst electric bill to date was last month, which was our coldest since buying this house. That was an astronomical (by my standards) 1600 kWh bill. Let's just say that the previous owner wasn't thinking much about efficiency when he chose a replacement heatpump five or six years ago...this model was at the bottom of the heap (and cheapest) even then. If this pump ever quits I'm going to seriously consider a dual-source heatpump. It combines a normal air-source pump with a small (~40-60ft) ground loop. The advantage is that you get most of the performance of a full ground-loop system for significantly lower up-front cost since it's a shallow well. That would probably cut my bills by half in the hottest and coldest months. And if that's too expensive, simply replacing it with a better air-source pump would be enough to make a big difference.
