How Much Electricity Does a TV Use? The 2026 UK Answer

How much electricity does a TV use?

Here is the simple sum. Cost equals power × time × your rate. A typical 50-inch LED TV pulls about 90 watts, which is 0.09 kilowatts. Watch it for one hour and it uses 0.09 kWh. At the price-cap rate of 24.67p per kWh, that hour costs about 2p.

Watch five hours a day, every day, and it adds up gently: that is roughly £40 a year. A bigger 65-inch set pulls more, often 120 to 150 W, so the same viewing lands closer to £55 to £65. None of these are scary numbers, and that is the first honest point most articles skate over: a modern TV is cheap to run almost however long you watch. The interesting question is not "is it cheap?" but "what actually changes the number?"

The belief that costs people money

Most people think the way to cut a TV's cost is to watch less or to switch it off at the wall. Both miss the point. Switching off at the wall saves you almost nothing. Since 2013, EU eco-design rules have forced TVs sold in the UK to draw under 0.5 watts on standby (standby = the red-light sleep mode). That works out at roughly £1 a year. Crawling behind the unit to flick a switch saves you about a penny a week.

The thing that really moves the number is not time at all. It is screen size, panel technology and brightness. A 65-inch screen has far more pixels to light than a 50-inch, so it can use 50% more power for the same show. And the panel type matters: an OLED TV (where every pixel makes its own light) sips power on a dark scene but spikes on a bright, sunny, high-contrast HDR picture. Think of it like a car: it is not how long you drive, it is how heavy your foot is.

Why most "TV electricity cost" articles get it wrong

Open the top results for this search and you will find the same article copied a dozen ways: one wattage, one price-cap rate, a fixed table, and the line "remember to switch it off standby to save money!" Three problems with that:

• ✓It uses their rate, not yours. If you are on a fixed deal at 22p, or a higher-standing-charge region, every number in their table is wrong for you;
• ✓It treats every TV as the same. A 43-inch LED and a 77-inch OLED can differ by four times in power, so a single "a TV uses X watts" figure is almost meaningless;
• ✓It tells you to unplug the TV, then ignores the games console, set-top box and soundbar beside it, which can quietly cost more than the TV ever does.

That is why the calculator below uses your rate. Type the price per kWh from your latest bill and the whole table re-prices for your home.

How much electricity does a 50 inch TV use, and a 65 inch?

This is where the real difference lives, so here it is with the numbers shown, not hidden. All figures assume five hours of viewing a day at the 2026 price-cap rate:

Read down that table and the lesson jumps out: jumping from a 50-inch to a 65-inch costs you more per year than watching the 50-inch for an extra two hours a day would. Size beats hours. The wattage of your own set is printed on the rating plate on the back, or in the manual under "power consumption", so you never have to guess.

The cost that hides next to the telly

Here is the non-obvious bit, and it is the thing worth remembering from this whole guide. The TV is rarely the biggest drain in your living room. The devices plugged in around it are. A games console left in "instant on" mode (so it boots fast) can draw 10 to 15 watts doing nothing, all day, all year. A set-top box or recorder can idle at 15 to 20 watts even when you are asleep. A soundbar adds a few more. Watch the table below.

Look what happens. A set-top box idling around the clock can cost almost as much as the TV you actually watch, and a console in instant-on mode is not far behind. Together, those two companions can quietly cost more than the telly itself. Yet every "save money on your TV" article tells you to unplug the screen and says nothing about the box.

The rule of thumb the energy-saving lists won't give you Stop unplugging the telly. The standby saving is about £1 a year and it is not worth the faff. Instead, switch your games console out of "instant on" (a single setting), and put the set-top box on a switched socket or smart plug so it powers down overnight. Those two changes can save more in a year than going TV-free for a fortnight.

How much electricity does a TV use per hour and per month?

For the per-hour figure, it is straightforward: a 90 W 50-inch LED uses 0.09 kWh an hour, which is about 2p an hour at the price cap. A 130 W 65-inch set is closer to 3p, and a big bright OLED can hit 4p on demanding content. Scale it by your own wattage: bigger screen, bigger number.

Per month, the same 50-inch set watched five hours a day works out at about £3.30. That is the figure to keep in your head, because monthly is how most people read their bill. Double your viewing and you roughly double that. But remember the lesson above: nudging the screen size up does more to that monthly number than another hour a night ever will.

What to actually do

• ✓Stop switching the TV off at the wall to save money. Standby is under 0.5 W and costs about £1 a year, so it is not worth the bother;
• ✓Turn off your games console's "instant on" mode. It is one setting, and it can save more than £20 a year of doing nothing;
• ✓Put the set-top box and soundbar on a switched socket or smart plug so they power down overnight instead of idling 24 hours a day;
• ✓Turn the brightness down a notch and use the "eco" or "standard" picture mode. On a big OLED or QLED this cuts power on bright scenes, where the spikes live;
• ✓Put your real unit rate, not the price cap, into the calculator above. A lower fixed-deal rate cuts the cost of the TV, the console and everything else you own at once.

The bottom line

A 50-inch LED TV costs about 2p an hour and around £40 a year: genuinely cheap, almost however long you watch. But it is the screen size, the panel type and the brightness that move the number, not the hours, which is why a bigger telly costs more than a longer evening. The standby myth wastes everyone's time: leave the TV alone and sort the console and the box instead. And the biggest single lever on every one of these numbers is still your electricity rate, which is why it is worth checking you are not overpaying for the kWh in the first place.