LED TV Electricity Cost & Wattage
What an LED TV costs to run: typical 90 W, about $22 a year. Adjust the figures to your own usage and electricity price.
Your LED TV running cost
Costs about
/ month
- Per day
- Per year
- Energy per day
Change the hours and price to match your case.
Typical wattage
| Low | 40 W |
|---|---|
| Typical | 90 W |
| High | 250 W |
| Typical use | 4 h/day |
A modern LED television is far cheaper to run than the plasma and CRT sets it replaced, but it is still on for hours every day in most homes, so its cost is worth knowing. Power draw depends mostly on screen size and brightness. A small 32-inch set might pull only 40 W, a typical 55-inch model around 90 W, and a large, bright 65-inch or larger 4K panel can reach 200 W or more, especially with HDR content that drives the backlight hard.
Because a TV runs at a fairly steady power while it is on, the hours-per-day approach the calculator uses is a good fit. Enter your set's wattage — you can find it on the energy label or the sticker on the back — along with how many hours a day it is genuinely on, and your price per kWh. Watching four hours a day, a 90 W television uses about 131 kWh a year, a modest but real line on the bill that grows with bigger screens and longer viewing.
Two things are easy to overlook. First, brightness settings matter a lot: shops set TVs to a punishing 'vivid' mode, and dialling that back to a normal picture can cut power noticeably with no real loss in a living room. Second, a TV keeps sipping power in standby so it can respond to the remote — usually only a watt or two, but it runs every hour the set is 'off', which is most of the day. The savings tips below tackle both.
How to cut LED TV running costs
- Switch the picture mode from 'vivid' or 'dynamic' to 'standard' or 'eco' — it cuts backlight power with no real loss at home.
- Turn the backlight or brightness down a notch; it is the single biggest lever on a TV's power use.
- Enable the ambient light sensor if your set has one so it dims automatically in a darker room.
- Use the real power button or a smart plug to cut standby on a set you rarely watch.
- Bigger is not free: if you are buying, check the energy label's watts, not just the screen size.
Frequently asked questions
How much electricity does a TV use per year?
A typical 90 W LED TV watched four hours a day uses about 131 kWh a year. Smaller sets use less; large, bright 4K panels watched longer can use several times more. Adjust the calculator to your own screen and habits.
Does screen brightness really change the cost?
Yes, significantly. The backlight is the main power draw, so lowering brightness or switching out of 'vivid' mode can cut a TV's consumption by a fifth or more, usually with no noticeable difference in a normally lit room.
Is standby power on a TV worth worrying about?
On its own a TV's standby is small, usually one or two watts. But it runs whenever the set is off, and across every device in a home standby adds up. Cutting it on rarely used sets is easy with a switched power strip.