TCL TV Wattage, Power and Electricity Consumption Explained
Rising energy prices might have you asking yourself the question, “How many watts does a TCL TV use?”
That’s a very reasonable thing to ask before purchasing a TV if you pay attention to electricity costs, and once you’ve read this review of just how much electricity it takes to power modern LED TVs, you’ll be glad you asked it!
To help answer the question about TCL TV wattage, we reviewed and analyzed 46 TCL TVs. We will show you the average power consumption for the TVs, and we will show you how much energy the TVs can use in a year!
Highlights:
- On average, TCL TVs use 160.1 watts when in On mode and 0.5 watts when in Standby mode.
- TCL TV wattage varies from 43.6 watts for a 43 inch TV all the way up to 398.1 watts for a 85 inch TV.
- TCL LED TVs use 295.7 kWh of electricity per year, on average.
- Yearly TV energy consumption varies from 83 kWh up to 730 kWh per TV.
- TV power consumption for TCL models varies drastically depending on features like screen size, resolution, backlight LEDs and audio power.
For more background information and terminology, we recommend you read our post on how many watts does a TV use?
All of the information for this study of TCL TVs was gathered from the official TCL TV website. The information was analyzed and summarized in this article and it’s only to be used for information purposes and as a general reference. To get the wattage and energy consumption numbers, you will have to fine the Energy Guide for the specific TCL TV you are interested in.
How Many Watts do TCL TVs Use?
As stated earlier, 32 inch to 85 inch TCL TVs use between 43.6 watts and 398.1 watts, on average.
The average power for all of the TCL TVs studied was 160.1 watts when in On mode.
It’s important to realize that the amount of power a TCL TV uses will depend not only on the screen size but the type of backlight LED technology used.
TCL has the following different types of TVs:
We created the following chart to help you see how TCL TV power increases as screen size gets larger.
It’s easy to see the trend between TV wattage and TV size, however, it’s worth mentioning that larger TV screens tend to have high resolutions like 4k (2160p) and 8k (4320p), which require much more power.
The 70 inch TCL TVs appeared to use less power than expected compared to the 65 inch and 75 inch TVs.
It’s very important to remember that the numbers here are the average of the typical power consumption numbers reported by TCL. They also provide the maximum power consumption numbers for most products and that can be two to three times as much as the typical power!
The chart below shows the minimum, average and maximum TV wattage for the TCL TVs we reviewed.
Overall, there wasn’t a huge variance between the minimum and maximum TV wattage for the individual TCL TV class sizes.
TCL TV Wattage by Screen Size
LCD TV screen size is the most popular way of choosing a TV, which is closely followed by resolution and other features like Wi-Fi, audio quality and wired connections.
Based on the previous two chart, it’s easy to see that TCL TV wattage increases with TV size, so as a consumer you can expect the larger TVs to consume more energy and cost more to operate.
The following table puts the TV screen size and TV wattage side-by-side so you can easily see how each TV size compares to the other ones.
| TV Screen Size | TV Wattage (Average) | TCL Model |
|---|---|---|
| 43 Inch | 59.4 Watts | 43S517 |
| 50 Inch | 72.8 Watts | 50T555 |
| 55 Inch | 123.1 Watts | 55R615 |
| 65 Inch | 176.1 Watts | 65S401 |
| 70 Inch | 135.1 Watts | 70S434 |
| 75 Inch | 223.9 Watts | 75S546 |
| 85 Inch | 231.3 Watts | 85S446 |
| 98 Inch | 363.0 Watts | 98R754 |
TCL TV Wattage by Resolution
The breakdown of TCL TV resolution is shown in the pie chart below. There weren’t any high definition, 720p, or full high-definition, 1080p, TVs in this review.
The 4K TVs, or 2160p resolution, was the most common type.
The newest 8K resolution was only found in larger TV screen sizes like 65 inch to 75 inch.
The following table lists the average TCL TV power by screen resolution to provide an idea of how TV watts go up with resolution.
| Name | Resolution | TV Wattage (Average) | TV Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| High-Definition (HD) | 720p | - | - |
| Full High-Definition (Full HD) | 1080p | - | - |
| 4K | 2160p | 154.4 Watts | 96% |
| 8K | 4320p | 285.8 Watts | 4% |
How Much Electricity Does a TCL TV Use Per Hour, Month and Year?
The amount of electricity used by any modern TV in an hour is very simple to calculate if you know how much power is uses in On mode. You simply take the wattage and divide it by 1000, which gives you the amount of energy in units of kWhs.
So, for the typical 55 inch TCL TV, which uses 123 watts to operate, it would take 123 watts divided by 1000 to get 0.123 kWh of energy used in 1 hour.
In order to accurately calculate how much electricity a TV uses in a month, you need to estimate the amount of time the TV is going to be on and off.
However, the Energy Star standard has determined that 5 hours with the TV in On mode and 19 hours with the TV in Standby mode, is the norm for households.
Therefore, you can determine how much energy is used in a day by multiplying the hourly power times 5 and then adding that to the standby mode power (0.5W) times 19 hours.
You simply take that daily power much and multiply it times 365 to get your yearly TV electricity average!
If you have a specific TV, or even your own TV at home, and want to know this number, then simply look-up the energy guide online, or you might even find the yellow label on the back of the TV.
TCL TV Power Consumption by Screen Size
The average TCL TV power consumption, listed by TV screen size, is shown in the table below for hourly, monthly and yearly usage.
It’s important to remember that these numbers are just the average, and there’s a big difference between the minimum and maximum values for each TV screen size class, plus the maximum power that each TV can potentially use.
Hence, be sure to figure out how much power your specific TVs are using if you want to better understand just how much electricity your home TVs are using!
| TV Screen Size | TV Energy Per Hour | TV Energy Per Month | TV Energy Per Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 43 Inch | 0.059 kWh | 9.2 kWh | 111.3 kWh |
| 50 Inch | 0.073 kWh | 11.2 kWh | 136.3 kWh |
| 55 Inch | 0.123 kWh | 18.8 kWh | 228.1 kWh |
| 65 Inch | 0.176 kWh | 26.7 kWh | 324.9 kWh |
| 70 Inch | 0.135 kWh | 20.5 kWh | 250.0 kWh |
| 75 Inch | 0.224 kWh | 33.9 kWh | 412.0 kWh |
| 85 Inch | 0.231 kWh | 35.0 kWh | 425.7 kWh |
| 98 Inch | 0.363 kWh | 54.7 kWh | 666.0 kWh |
TCL TV Power Consumption by Resolution
TCL TV resolution plays a significant role in power consumption when comparing the same TV screen size.
As a good estimate, the amount of electricity is almost double as the resolution increases!
Hence, a good understanding of how resolution impacts both TV energy consumption, and TV quality, is important when comparing TVs side-by-side.
The table below clearly shows that trend, though the size of the TVs also tend to get bigger when the resolution increases.
| Name | Resolution | TV Energy Per Hour | TV Energy Per Month | TV Energy Per Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High-Definition (HD) | 720p | - | - | - |
| Full High-Definition (Full HD) | 1080p | - | - | - |
| 4K | 2160p | 0.154 kWh | 23.4 kWh | 285.3 kWh |
| 8K | 4320p | 0.286 kWh | 43.2 kWh | 525.0 kWh |
TCL TV FAQs
How many watts does a 50 inch TCL TV use?
On average, a 55 inch Hisense TV uses 162.1 watts with a minimum of 110 watts and a maximum of 240 watts.
55 inch Hisense TVs use about 299.4 kWh of electricity per year.
TCL TV power consumption?
TCL TVs average about 160.1 watts of power for their 43 to 98 inch screens.
On average, TCL TVs consume 295.7 kWh of energy per year.
Summary
Hopefully this study of the newest TCL TVs in 2021 and 2022 has helped give you an understanding of the amount of power and energy needed to power them.
There was a lot of information presented, but the information was presented in such a way to give you an idea of approximate power and energy needs, per TV, in your home.
And with that information, you can then calculate how much it costs to run a TCL TV!
We’d love to hear from you if you have any comments or specific questions that we didn’t cover.