Recent press reports claiming that Plasma TV technology may be banned from the market soon for energy efficiency reasons are factually incorrect, according to the European electronics industry. "According to the pertinent EU directive a technology such as plasma cannot be banned from the market as long as the TV sets (using this technology) comply with the energy efficiency requirements," EICTA said in a statement.

"The EU and its member states are currently working on new regulations to ensure improved energy efficiency of TV sets across all technologies, including Plasma TVs, LCD TVs, CRT based TVs, etc. All manufacturers will be required to meet these new minimum efficiency standards in order to continue producing, importing and selling TV sets on the European market," EICA continues.

This regulation is expected to be published during the second half of 2009. After a period of transition products are expected to be compliant by the second half of 2010.

It is important to understand that all relevant Technologies i.e. Plasma, LCDs and CRT TVs differ in the way they consume power. However, the industry has unified the criteria to make an equal measure across all technologies to allow a comparison to the consumer. Overall, both LCD and plasma technology have made significant advances over the past few years and both are achieving better and better power efficiency. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, many manufacturers showed current and future technologies, demonstrating the industry?s continued commitment to improving energy efficiency even further independent of the type of technology.