The U.S. cable industry announced its new initiative called CableLabs (News - Alert) - Energy Lab, a new facility within the cable industry’s R&D consortium.

The new project will focus on improving energy efficiency of consumer set-top boxes and other devices and developing advanced cable-enabled services designed to promote innovative consumer energy conservation measures.

According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA (News - Alert)) and CableLabs, the energy initiative is expected to promote the development, testing, and deployment of technologies.

The new initiative is aimed at enabling cable subscribers to reduce and manage energy consumption in the home, including establishing new needs for both cable video devices and network support systems.

These specifications are expected to enable the making of devices that have “sleep” capabilities to reduce power consumption when subscribers are not watching television.

Cable operators will start promoting the deployment of these devices as part of their ongoing efforts to provide functional, reliable and energy efficient services.

“This important energy initiative will build upon the industry’s exemplary record of improving the energy efficiency of successive generations of video devices and services without government intervention, and more importantly it will chart our energy conservation course for the future,” said Michael Powell, NCTA president and CEO, in a statement.

Most of the U.S. cable operators has committed to ensure that by the end of 2013 at least 90 percent of all new set-top boxes they purchase and deploy will be ENERGY STAR (News - Alert) 3.0 devices.

“The CableLabs - Energy Lab demonstrates how the cable industry recognizes its opportunity to reduce the energy consumption of devices that our customers use to access cable services, and takes full advantage of cable technology to enable consumers to manage energy consumption throughout the home,” said Paul Liao, CableLabs president and CEO.

In 2010, Dolby Laboratories (News - Alert), a provider of audio technologies and systems, and National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) announced their partnership to make cinema quality 3D feed utilizing a cable set-top box presented in a digital movie environment enabled with Dolby 3D.