The Guardian reports:

Growing love of computers and plasma TVs could soon account for nearly half our electricity bills
Britain’s addiction to power-hungry gadgets could raise electricity bills by £100 per year for every household and hamper progress in meeting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions targets, according to experts.
The proliferation of plasma televisions, high-end PCs and mobile phones is causing energy consumption to soar. These devices currently account for 25% of the electricity used by UK households and projections by the Energy Savings Trust (EST) show this will rise to around 45% by 2020. Per household, this means an increase in energy use of 1,000kWh per year at present, to 1,700kWh in 2020 and, at today’s electricity prices, this will cause a jump in bills from just under £140 per year to £237.
Around the world, the energy consumed by information, communication and consumer technologies will double by 2022 and triple by 2030, according to a study by the International Energy Agency (IEA), to a total of 1,700 terawatt hours. This is equivalent to the current combined total domestic electricity consumption of the United States and Japan, at a cost to households of around $200bn in electricity bills and requiring the addition of approximately 280 gigawatts of new generating capacity between now and 2030. “This could be a serious situation for the world if the manufacturers of these products don’t get their act together and start taking energy efficiency seriously,” said Paula Owen, of EST.