In this paper, an energy recovery for plasma display is proposed. The proposed energy recovery sustainer provides soft-switching of main sustain switches and reduces the switching loss. Due to soft-switching characteristic, the switching losses of main switches are significantly reduced. In addition, the conduction losses in both main and auxiliary switches are effectively reduced by varying a current build-up time according to image patterns. Theoretical analysis and performance of the proposed energy recovery sustain driver were verified on an experimental prototype operating at 200 kHz switching frequency.