Energy efficiency standards and labels are highly effective strategies for producing very large energy savings compared with business-as-usual practices.
Worldwide there is a potential to save 3.1 Gt CO2/year by 2020 through increasing the product coverage and target levels for S&L; expanding the global pool of S&L practitioners; expanding global information dissemination; and accelerating global monitoring, verification, and enforcement.
Additionally, energy efficiency S&L – supported by global best-practice collaboration and options for harmonization to highest stringency between countries and regions – are cost-effective and globally accessible measures for limiting energy growth without limiting economic growth.
S&L—Effectiveness You Measure Energy efficiency standards and labels – a unique form of quantifiable energy policy – deliver concrete and measurable energy savings that help demonstrate their effectiveness to policy makers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers.
S&L practitioners measure the effectiveness of energy efficiency S&L through:
- forecasting the impacts of S&L on energy use, economy, and consumers;
- collecting and analyzing energy, economic, and consumer data; and
- assessing post-implementation impacts of S&L on energy savings, market conditions, and the behavior of consumers, importers, manufacturers, and retailers.
Read more about S&L Impacts Assessments.
Effectiveness of Standards—The U.S. Energy Efficiency Standards Program The case of refrigerator efficiency in the U.S. market demonstrates the impressive impact a standard can have on appliance efficiency. U.S. refrigerator standards – which began in the mid-1980s – are expected to save consumers almost $40 billion by 2015. The Annual Energy Use, Volume and Real Price of New Refrigerators graph shows how the U.S.’s 1990, 1993 and 2001 minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) shifted the market toward refrigerators that are substantially more efficient. The 1993 U.S. refrigerator standard represented a 25-30% increase in energy efficiency, eliminating 99% of the models that were previously on the market. Then, due to the innovation of new technologies in the intervening years, the 2001 standard required an additional 25-30% efficiency increase that eliminated about 95% of the models on the market by that time. Even as energy use decreased over time, the graph shows that refrigerators concurrently became larger and less expensive over time.
Effectiveness of Labels—The European Union’s Refrigerator Labeling Scheme
The case of refrigerator efficiency in the EU market demonstrates the impressive impact an energy label can have on appliance efficiency. The European Union’s refrigerator labeling scheme (as illustrated on the Impact of EU Refrigerator Energy Label graph) showed dramatic efficiency improvements and impacts. The average energy efficiency of refrigeration appliances sold improved by 26% between 1992 and late 1999, with over one-third of the impact attributable to the new labels. Though this assessment clearly implies a significant energy-efficiency potential for reducing the energy use of refrigerators, the assessment actually understates the overall impacts of this label by omitting other factors such as reduction in total energy use, net economic effect, and environmental contribution.
Effectiveness of National S&L Policy—The United States The U.S. calculates that overall impacts of residential energy efficiency standards adopted so far will save consumers $241 billion by 2030. These cumulative savings indicate that even subtracting the costs to consumers of paying higher prices for more efficient equipment, consumers will save $241 billion, in today’s dollars, from reduced appliance energy use. Projections show that the U.S. will reduce residential energy use and carbon dioxide emissions by 8% in 2030 compared to levels expected in the absence of standards. Additionally, since the U.S. has achieved these savings by spending $200-$250 million supporting residential appliance standards over the past 20 years, investment in energy efficiency standards is clearly cost-effective for U.S. consumers.
In addition to the U.S. standards program, effectiveness measurements of the overall impacts of the U.S. ENERGY STAR labeling program demonstrate additional consumer savings. Over 60 ENERGY STAR labeled products saved consumers nearly $10 billion on energy bills in 2009 alone and over $125 billion in net savings from 1993 – 2020. ENERGY STAR avoided the emissions of 20 tons of carbon in 2009 or the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of over 13 million vehicles. Qualified products saved over 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity or about 2.5% of the total 2009 U.S. electricity demand.