Energy Star has been a huge success over the past 30 years. It's (now) widely supported by industry, has reduced the TCO to consumers for most household appliances, and results in hundreds of billions of kWh of electricity saved every year.
Energy Star is not some tree-hugging, drum-circle, feel-good program.
The US urgently needs to expand and modernize our grid. Every GW of power saved, is GW of generation and transmission capacity that we don't have to build and maintain.
Energy Star can be frustrating as well. My latest laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad) has an Energy Star rating. To get this, they need to do things like turn off the power to the audio pre-amp if there's no sound being played. When a sound is ready to be played, latency is undesirable, so it gets pushed to the amp before the amp has powered up. The result is some fraction of a second of missing sound, and also an annoying click through the speakers when the amp is powered down after the sound stops.
I would rather have sound without these issues, even if my computer consumes an extra 100mW at idle to keep the sound system ready.
I'm aware that most sound chipsets allow a user override that keeps the circuits on, but the this newer chipset doesn't seem to implement the feature correctly. No combination of arguments to the linux sound system, or loadable modules seems to keep the sound circuits from switching to standby.
I've had problems with modern monitors shutting themselves off if they don't detect a signal in something like five or ten seconds, which is far too short when I'm trying to debug a PC having boot issues, configure a multi-monitor setup (like a 3-screen virtual pinball cabinet) or even just figure out which HDMI cable is which on the PC end. I don't mind the auto-off feature but the incredibly short time period is unnecessary and the delay time isn't adjustable (at least on the LG monitors I have).
This over-aggressiveness turns a good feature into a problem forcing me to completely disable power saving. Which is sad because the biggest savings of the feature are when a screen is left on for hours when the PC is off or disconnected (which I don't do anyway, as the entire system is on a smart power strip). A monitor should hunt for a valid signal for at least 45 or 60 seconds by default before auto-offing itself.
Another "power saving gone awry" issue is that USB selective suspend can cause wireless mice to stutter after not moving for just a few seconds. I think this is due to lag in the wake-up time. Unfortunately, the interface doesn't have any time adjustment, so I have to just turn selective suspend.
Interesting. I had similar things from other machines, and the solution is to keep a silent audio file playing in the background at all times, then there is no latency.
EnergyStar has nothing to do with "modernizing the grid". It is, however, why any new dishwasher in the US takes like 4 hours to finish a load, unless you put it into non-bureaucratic mode. Meanwhile, we're driving energy consumption into the stratosphere with datacenters full of completely unregulated [1] GPUs that are mining scamcoins and generating incorrect search results.
The usual libertarian point applies here: just because the government stops doing X doesn't mean that you automatically get less X.
Particularly in the case of EnergyStar, I think it's well into the tail of diminishing returns on investment -- manufacturers don't have any incentive to start producing power-guzzling appliances when power costs are increasing. Its the sort of program that sounds good in theory, and maybe made sense at one point, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
[1] I'm not arguing for regulation on GPUs...just pointing out that EnergyStar isn't touching the currently important part of the problem.
The problem is manufacturers also have no incentives to display the information EnergyStar provides if not forced to do so.
And sure Americans care about energy costs but looking at the car market you can see Americans don’t actually care to make choices that save them money in the long run. Ford doesn’t even produce sedans anymore.
EnergyStar has nothing to do with "modernizing the grid". It is, however, why any new dishwasher in the US takes like 4 hours to finish a load, unless you put it into non-bureaucratic mode. Meanwhile, we're driving energy consumption into the stratosphere with datacenters full of completely unregulated [1] GPUs that are mining scamcoins and generating incorrect search results.
The usual libertarian point applies here: just because the government stops doing X doesn't mean that you automatically get less X. Particularly in the case of EnergyStar, I think it's well into the tail of diminishing returns on investment -- manufacturers don't have any incentive to start producing power-guzzling appliances when power costs are increasing. Its the sort of program that sounds good in theory, and maybe made sense at one point, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
[1] I'm not arguing for regulation on GPUs...just pointing out that EnergyStar isn't touching the currently important part of the problem.
Your whole premise is wrong. Energy star doesn't make a company do anything besides disclosure.
> manufacturers don't have any incentive to start producing power-guzzling appliances when power costs are increasing
That's only true if customers can know how much energy their devices are going to use. Energy star forces that disclosure and that's it. Market forces are done everything else. Consumers prefer lower energy costs and devices that voluntarily achieve an energy star certification
Also, "takes like 4 hours to finish a load", I have a new dishwasher, there is no combination of settings (except adding a delay) that will make a load take four hours. Max I can get is 2:36
New dishwashers take a long time because they can be more energy and water efficient if they leave more time for detergents to degrade grease and the other stuff on dishes. If you don't have the time to wait for a slow cycle you use a fast one with the usual tradeoff of time vs money.
You’re getting downvoted because you’re making a few mistakes. 1) Energy Star is not a mandate, it’s a certificate if you want it. 25% of dishwashers are not ES at Home Depot. 2) Dishwashers are slow for a few reasons, a big one is gov’t stopped use of strong detergents. The new one needs time to dissolve foods. 3) “why solve X when Y is still a problem” is always a weak argument. 4) “markets will solve it” doesn’t always work because the individual cost of an energy guzzling appliance is a few extra dollars, but the collective cost is high.
The difference between appliances in 1970 vs now is immense. My dishwasher is so quiet we double check if it’s on. It uses less water than handwashing. Even the Chamber of Commerce (big business lobby) asked them to keep Energy Star.
I think you'll find this is a result of the phosphate ban in the 90s. Detergent got less effective, so cycle times got longer to compensate. Same problem with clothes washers. A spoonfull of trisodium phosphate goes a long way, as long as you're ok with algae blooms downstream.
The GAO wrote a report on fraud, waste, and abuse potential of Energy Star in 2010. They were able to get a gas-powered alarm clock (and 14 other fake products) marked as Energy Star compliant. Worth a read/laugh.
It's a trite trueism that all systems are vulnerable to fraud and abuse and it's no suprise the GAO was able to demonstrate the potential for abuse fourteen years ago.
What would be more interesting would be a historic examination on the amount of fraud and abuse that actually takes place in the Energy Star program and whether the various decade plus old recommendations:
We briefed program officials with the Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and EPA OIG as well as attorneys with the Consumer Protection division of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on the results of our work, and incorporated their comments concerning controls in place to protect the Energy Star label from fraud and abuse.
proved useful in finding such fraud or in decreasing any occurance.
Every couple days I get a pretty blatant spam email in my inbox. It's frustrating that gmail's spam filter doesn't catch these, especially since I recall it working better in the past. But I'm not going to turn off the filter because it still catches dozens of spam emails a day.
Showing that a system has flaws doesn't necessarily prove that a system is useless. You have to look at the overall impact. In cases where you have an imperfect but useful system (such as most government regulation and enforcement) finding vulnerabilities is an important part of improving the system. A police department which only catches some murderers should work on catching more criminals rather than deciding it's hopeless and we might as well make homicide legal.
Overall levels of fraud are almost by definition hard to measure precisely. Demanding precision is simply a way to duck the issue. It's easier to precisely measure red teaming efforts, because then you know the denominator.
There is no incentive to run these programmes well and no downside to failing so you should assume fraud is rampant. When the GAO got a gas-powered alarm clock approved, who in the department lost their jobs? Did the head of the EPA get fired? Did they all lose their bonuses? No, they held a meeting where they claimed it didn't matter because the industry self-polices.
The best part about energy star I think was that it allows me to clearly see the energy consumption of the product. Without that it might not be as straightforward to find, and I'd probably be more skeptical of its accuracy
That's probably the main reason they want to do away with it. Eliminating any semblance of independent factual information across the board means that the truth becomes whatever the best bankrolled says it is. I could see them eliminating the MPG/eMPG ratings on vehicles next.
It's easy and more direct for Consumer Reports style companies to measure energy consumption themselves, instead of assuming that the producer's self-reports are fully accurate because there's a regulator who may or may not be paying attention.
Thanks! I read the article and a lot of these comments, and I was thinking the whole time that Energy Guide was going away. As long as Energy Guide is sticking around, I really don't care about the "Energy Star" specific item.
You will most probably get a different version of the same product (cheaper and worse) compared to one sold in EU. It takes one market participant to do this and everyone else will have to follow, otherwise consumers will buy the cheapest one.
First: Those numbers are all BS and have been for decades. If you want damp clothes, dirty dishes and refrigerated to within a blond one of the legal minimum food then you can trust the numbers. If you want your appliances to do their jobs in a satisfactory manner you're going to find yourself turning them up (whatever that means will vary by appliance) and consequently using a lot more energy.
Second: Those yellow stickers are from the FTC, not the EPA.
>First: Those numbers are all BS and have been for decades. If you want damp clothes, dirty dishes and refrigerated to within a blond one of the legal minimum food then you can trust the numbers. If you want your appliances to do their jobs in a satisfactory manner you're going to find yourself turning them up (whatever that means will vary by appliance) and consequently using a lot more energy.
I have had zero of these issues. Can you be more specific about when you have encountered them yourself?
I googled, and you are right. Here's the description of Energy Star from the EPA website [1]
> The ENERGY STAR label saves you the effort needed to process all the information on the EnergyGuide sticker by simply designating the products that are highly efficient. When you see a product that has earned the ENERGY STAR, it means it meets strict guidelines for energy savings set by the EPA. Only manufacturers that independently certify their product’s performance are allowed to use it. (And when they do, you’ll find that manufacturers sometimes incorporate the ENERGY STAR label right into the EnergyGuide label, giving you the best of both worlds).
It seems like everything this administration thinks will make America better somehow also involves making everything I buy and use more expensive. Except maybe gasoline, although not as much as one would think.
There's no doubts tariffs will make everything more expensive but I don't see how shutting down this program would affect costs. Plus, a private certification program could easily fill in the void.
Here is a bright idea, keep the existing program that works and therefore we wouldn’t need some mythical private certification program that doesn’t exist and probably be a scam if it did.
It won't necessarily affect purchase costs but it could affect operating costs.
When I needed a new washing machine a year or so ago there were many machines that were very similar except for large variations in energy efficiency. If it weren't for the Energy Star labels I almost certainly would have ended up with a machine with higher operating costs.
> I don't see how shutting down this program would affect costs
> Plus, a private certification program could easily fill in the void.
Ah there’s your problem. It turns out private solutions actually cost money, and relying on a private certification program to “fill the void” as you say, is what actually changes the costs.
Alternatively if you believe that private corporate actions are always free when comparing it to government services, then this is a net zero change
Gasoline will end up more expensive, too. The current oil glut is being deliberately engineered by OPEC+, which is pumping excess oil in order to bankrupt higher-cost suppliers. We should be using this time to refill the strategic oil reserve and (simultaneously) to stabilize prices at a level that guarantees continued investment -- but we're not.
And migrate off oil consumption as much as possible while energy is cheaper (to bootstrap manufacturing/construction of other energy production systems). If the costs are down now because of OPEC+, then they'll go up. That's when we want to be able to sell (improving our trade deficit, a stated goal of this administration) to other countries. The US is the world's largest oil consumer, we consume 50% more than China. If we reduced our rate of consumption we could shift more towards exporting and be the ones controlling prices, since the US is also the biggest producer.
Meh, extraction of commodities is always cyclical. They'll be a glut, domestic producers will take a beating, OPEC will jack up the price, and then the domestic producers will bounce back. It has ever been thus.
Yes. 100%. Before energy star, refrigerators were made with heating coils glued to the outer panels because it was cheaper to warm the outside of the fridge to avoid condensation than it was to install adequate insulation inside the fridge. The operating cost of those lightly insulated fridges was much higher, but the parts cost was a few dollars lower. Energy star and those yellow power consumption stickers changed that.
> Before energy star, refrigerators were made with heating coils glued to the outer panels
Do you have any examples of such products? I don't believe I've ever seen one.
> it was cheaper to warm the outside of the fridge to avoid condensation
A refrigerator has an evaporator inside the fridge to get cold but it must have a condenser on the outside to discharge heat. The outside of the fridge is going to get warm no matter what you do. The only time I've seen an actual heater used is when a fridge is placed outside where temperatures go below freezing.
> but the parts cost was a few dollars lower.
The labor cost was also significantly lower and the rate of production was higher.
> than it was to install adequate insulation inside the fridge
They used to be insulated with cork and then fiberglass which were the common technologies for their time. As soon as foam became more prevalent they switched to that.
> Energy star and those yellow power consumption stickers changed that.
It normalized the patchwork system that existed before it. California, as always, experienced the initial problem and created it's own standards on refrigerators sold in the state. Other states followed, the federal government picked at it slightly, and finally Energy Star came into existence mostly by industry demand.
Without Energy Star or regulations, what incentive do manufacturers have to display this information, and display it accurately? Consumers cannot hold manufacturers accountable. Even boycotts are under legal scrutiny. Our only option are class action lawsuits, which take years or longer and can be considered a cost of doing business, and have been stymied by binding arbitration contracts.
What is accurately? The efficiency of the product will depend on how full it is. The less mass you have inside it the more often it turns on and the more energy it consumes.
So do consumers even understand this particular point of their device? Or how their use case may impact the displayed numbers?
They have none, which is why you don't ask the manufacturers to do that. You rely on other parties who make money by helping you choose between what products to buy (i.e. reviewers), as you do for any other dimension other than Energy Star ratings.
Even with regulations like Energy Star, you can't just assume they're being followed accurately. It's much easier for companies to game one government-run system than a whole ecosystem of reviewers who are competing on the accuracy of their reviews.
Largely it's just worked. Products on the market are almost all efficient now because it's blatantly displayed on the front.
The most obvious difference left is on fridges. The amount of power consumed varies quite a lot and in ways that are not obvious. Small fridges use a shocking amount of power because they use less efficient coolers without compressors.
No - your utility used energy star compliance as an easy yes/no for giving you a rebate, but it could still give out rebates without energy star based on a couple of simple specs.
I think Energy Star (and similar state programs) has driven companies to increase efficiency in many products even if you don't care. (Unfortunately some of the "improvements" have been fake, like dishwashers that don't wash, and this has justifiably turned some people against the program.)
Citation for dishwashers that don't wash. After switching back to dishwash powders (away from tablets -- which I learnt through a Technology Connections video basically don't work since it gets dissolved in the 10mins rinse cycle of most dishwashers) I've yet to have a bad dishwasher experience using powders which gets inserted into the wash cycle (and not the rinse cycle). Even the dirt cheap dishwasher I got as a package with my new house has no issues cleaning close to 100% of dishes on the first try, every single run. Everyone I know that complaints are tablet users and every time I point this out, I get a shrugs "too hard to use powder -- easy to just load a tablet and run it again a second time if I have to". Energy Star has been great on improving the energy efficiency of dishwashes -- we now need the same standard for the chemicals we put into the dishwashers! Banning tablets would be a great improvement IMHO but don't think we'll see that happening.
I’ve made purchasing decisions based on TCO projections from the yellow Energy Guide stickers (managed by the FTC). I’ve never knowingly made one based on the blue Energy Star stickers. (However if some kickback or tax credit scheme depended on those stickers, then I may have made a decision influenced by the kickback and therefore by the Energy Star sticker.)
One particular example was a tradeoff calculation for water heaters. I forget what the exact TCO tradeoff point was but it was ridiculously short (between 1-2 years). I was replacing a leaking/failed heater and expected it to be shortly thereafter replaced due to a basement remodel we had planned. I bought the best insulated one as it saved money if we used it for just 2 years. 16 years later, that unit failed (we didn’t do the planned remodel). That was based on the FTC sticker only (plus my actual gas rates).
Edit to add: we then replaced that water heater with an electric heat pump water heater (which is eligible for the IRS tax credit scheme, which requires they "must meet or exceed the highest efficiency tier (not including any advanced tier) established by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE)") and all of the EPA Energy Star rated heat pump ones do, but I'd argue that the heater would still carry the highest CEE rating with or without the Energy Star program, so I still didn't purchase based solely or primarily on any factor that the star under-pinned, but if there was a heat pump water heater that didn't have the sticker, I'd have had to look to be sure it was still eligible for the rebate.
Absolutely! I plan to buy a mini split, and efficiency is the biggest driver after properly sizing the unit for my space. Energy costs add up when you live where your air conditioner can run non-stop for months at a time.
generally its not energy star, but online reviews/audits of efficiency under various scenarios. Just like how for EVs we don't generally use MPGe but the range tests from YouTube & Blog reviewers.
Forgive my ignorance as a EU customer, but how would you trust the power/efficiency claims without independent certification? (I suppose that's what the energystar is supposed to provide)
I'll filter appliances at big box stores by Energy Star, and then will side by side the run cost per year estimates. Do people NOT utilize Energy Star when making purchasing decisions?
I don't think I ever have. I've gone by customer and professional reviews, physical size, presence of features and anti-features (I won't get anything IoT-ified), but the energy star rating hasn't ever been a factor.
I honestly don't remember for sure, but I have a vague impression of "significant difference in energy star rating is outweighed by significant difference in purchase price". Could be that was just the particular type of appliance years ago, though.
A few years ago I needed a fridge for my hobby space. One where I could store various substances that I didn’t want stored by my food.
I was originally looking for a mini fridge like what you’d think of belonging in an American dorm room. In the store, I noticed the medium sized fridges (more akin to what one might think of in a European studio apartment) actually used less energy according to the yellow sticker, so I went with that.
This was a case where I wasn’t really looking for anything very specific, though, so it’s not like I was already limited in options and limited more by that sticker.
Sometimes I do a TCO analysis by subtracting the energy savings over 7 years (or 5, or 10 or whatever I estimate the useful life to be) from the more expensive price of the more energy efficient product. Occasionally it comes out less than the cheaper product.
I will be honest, I have long assumed everything in the store has Energy Star on it, and I am sorta doubtful companies will deliberately make less efficient appliances if it goes away.
But it also seems like one of those things that surely doesn't cost much to keep around either. Getting rid of it is just virtue signaling to anti-climate people.
>...I am sorta doubtful companies will deliberately make less efficient appliances if it goes away.
Working in the manufacturing space, I have no doubt designs will change and energy consumption will go up. They will be able to remove sensors, heat water hotter in dishwashers and clothes washers, run cycles more aggressively, and use cheaper motors (such as HVAC fans). Any item you can remove from the bill of materials adds to the profit directly.
Capital expenditure versus operating expenditure is a common tradeoff discussed in a business sense, and the Energy Star gave a pretty darn good comparison for opex for consumers. Taking that away (even with some of the games that have been played over the years) is a huge loss for consumers.
It's a right wing grievance attack on the environment.
Just like there was a right-wing grievance attack on education, science, water quality, air quality, due process, food inspections, being bound by the constitution ... Basically anything that seeks to make things better.
They feel oppressed by all of it.
But don't worry. When your food is full of mercury and you're breathing in lead in a few years, the right wing will be there to blame DEI and wokeism for it because that's how they operate: destroy things, blame scapegoats, win elections, repeat.
There's people like Chris Rufo that openly state it's their strategy. None of this is speculative.
Yeah, it's a weird situation with the current administration because they're clearly on a revenge tour and it will be hard to predict what their actual government will look like once they cool off. They're still acting like the opposition party and if they keep this up for all
four years they might remain as such.
Readit News
Energy Star has been a huge success over the past 30 years. It's (now) widely supported by industry, has reduced the TCO to consumers for most household appliances, and results in hundreds of billions of kWh of electricity saved every year.
Energy Star is not some tree-hugging, drum-circle, feel-good program.
The US urgently needs to expand and modernize our grid. Every GW of power saved, is GW of generation and transmission capacity that we don't have to build and maintain.
I would rather have sound without these issues, even if my computer consumes an extra 100mW at idle to keep the sound system ready.
I'm aware that most sound chipsets allow a user override that keeps the circuits on, but the this newer chipset doesn't seem to implement the feature correctly. No combination of arguments to the linux sound system, or loadable modules seems to keep the sound circuits from switching to standby.
This over-aggressiveness turns a good feature into a problem forcing me to completely disable power saving. Which is sad because the biggest savings of the feature are when a screen is left on for hours when the PC is off or disconnected (which I don't do anyway, as the entire system is on a smart power strip). A monitor should hunt for a valid signal for at least 45 or 60 seconds by default before auto-offing itself.
Another "power saving gone awry" issue is that USB selective suspend can cause wireless mice to stutter after not moving for just a few seconds. I think this is due to lag in the wake-up time. Unfortunately, the interface doesn't have any time adjustment, so I have to just turn selective suspend.
Deleted Comment
It saves people money. Less spent on electric bills and tax money can be used elsewhere.
This is what they claim. The reality is a much different.
Dead Comment
The usual libertarian point applies here: just because the government stops doing X doesn't mean that you automatically get less X.
Particularly in the case of EnergyStar, I think it's well into the tail of diminishing returns on investment -- manufacturers don't have any incentive to start producing power-guzzling appliances when power costs are increasing. Its the sort of program that sounds good in theory, and maybe made sense at one point, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
[1] I'm not arguing for regulation on GPUs...just pointing out that EnergyStar isn't touching the currently important part of the problem.
And sure Americans care about energy costs but looking at the car market you can see Americans don’t actually care to make choices that save them money in the long run. Ford doesn’t even produce sedans anymore.
- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43912989
The usual libertarian point applies here: just because the government stops doing X doesn't mean that you automatically get less X. Particularly in the case of EnergyStar, I think it's well into the tail of diminishing returns on investment -- manufacturers don't have any incentive to start producing power-guzzling appliances when power costs are increasing. Its the sort of program that sounds good in theory, and maybe made sense at one point, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
[1] I'm not arguing for regulation on GPUs...just pointing out that EnergyStar isn't touching the currently important part of the problem.
> manufacturers don't have any incentive to start producing power-guzzling appliances when power costs are increasing
That's only true if customers can know how much energy their devices are going to use. Energy star forces that disclosure and that's it. Market forces are done everything else. Consumers prefer lower energy costs and devices that voluntarily achieve an energy star certification
Also, "takes like 4 hours to finish a load", I have a new dishwasher, there is no combination of settings (except adding a delay) that will make a load take four hours. Max I can get is 2:36
The difference between appliances in 1970 vs now is immense. My dishwasher is so quiet we double check if it’s on. It uses less water than handwashing. Even the Chamber of Commerce (big business lobby) asked them to keep Energy Star.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/files.gao.gov/assets/gao-10-470.p...
What would be more interesting would be a historic examination on the amount of fraud and abuse that actually takes place in the Energy Star program and whether the various decade plus old recommendations:
proved useful in finding such fraud or in decreasing any occurance.Showing that a system has flaws doesn't necessarily prove that a system is useless. You have to look at the overall impact. In cases where you have an imperfect but useful system (such as most government regulation and enforcement) finding vulnerabilities is an important part of improving the system. A police department which only catches some murderers should work on catching more criminals rather than deciding it's hopeless and we might as well make homicide legal.
There is no incentive to run these programmes well and no downside to failing so you should assume fraud is rampant. When the GAO got a gas-powered alarm clock approved, who in the department lost their jobs? Did the head of the EPA get fired? Did they all lose their bonuses? No, they held a meeting where they claimed it didn't matter because the industry self-polices.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
(if you can't tell whether that is sarcasm that might be because I also don't know)
First: Those numbers are all BS and have been for decades. If you want damp clothes, dirty dishes and refrigerated to within a blond one of the legal minimum food then you can trust the numbers. If you want your appliances to do their jobs in a satisfactory manner you're going to find yourself turning them up (whatever that means will vary by appliance) and consequently using a lot more energy.
Second: Those yellow stickers are from the FTC, not the EPA.
I have had zero of these issues. Can you be more specific about when you have encountered them yourself?
This article is about the blue Energy Star sticker program, which is managed by the EPA.
I googled, and you are right. Here's the description of Energy Star from the EPA website [1]
[1] https://www.energystar.gov/products/ask-the-experts/whats-di...When I needed a new washing machine a year or so ago there were many machines that were very similar except for large variations in energy efficiency. If it weren't for the Energy Star labels I almost certainly would have ended up with a machine with higher operating costs.
> Plus, a private certification program could easily fill in the void.
Ah there’s your problem. It turns out private solutions actually cost money, and relying on a private certification program to “fill the void” as you say, is what actually changes the costs.
Alternatively if you believe that private corporate actions are always free when comparing it to government services, then this is a net zero change
Private industry cannot be trusted to act in any interest but their own bottom line.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
(As opposed to efficiency/power cost/TCO in general, specifically refusing to buy non-logoed goods)
Do you have any examples of such products? I don't believe I've ever seen one.
> it was cheaper to warm the outside of the fridge to avoid condensation
A refrigerator has an evaporator inside the fridge to get cold but it must have a condenser on the outside to discharge heat. The outside of the fridge is going to get warm no matter what you do. The only time I've seen an actual heater used is when a fridge is placed outside where temperatures go below freezing.
> but the parts cost was a few dollars lower.
The labor cost was also significantly lower and the rate of production was higher.
> than it was to install adequate insulation inside the fridge
They used to be insulated with cork and then fiberglass which were the common technologies for their time. As soon as foam became more prevalent they switched to that.
> Energy star and those yellow power consumption stickers changed that.
It normalized the patchwork system that existed before it. California, as always, experienced the initial problem and created it's own standards on refrigerators sold in the state. Other states followed, the federal government picked at it slightly, and finally Energy Star came into existence mostly by industry demand.
Anything that stands in the way of a fridge expelling heat to its environment will make it less efficient.
What is accurately? The efficiency of the product will depend on how full it is. The less mass you have inside it the more often it turns on and the more energy it consumes.
So do consumers even understand this particular point of their device? Or how their use case may impact the displayed numbers?
Even with regulations like Energy Star, you can't just assume they're being followed accurately. It's much easier for companies to game one government-run system than a whole ecosystem of reviewers who are competing on the accuracy of their reviews.
See: Bud Light.
Because of Energy Star that gap has generally shrunk, but that just means it’s working well.
The most obvious difference left is on fridges. The amount of power consumed varies quite a lot and in ways that are not obvious. Small fridges use a shocking amount of power because they use less efficient coolers without compressors.
https://www.tampaelectric.com/residential/saveenergy/energys...
Not sure actively subsidizing recreational novelty uses of electricity is doing anything to save the planet
No - your utility used energy star compliance as an easy yes/no for giving you a rebate, but it could still give out rebates without energy star based on a couple of simple specs.
One particular example was a tradeoff calculation for water heaters. I forget what the exact TCO tradeoff point was but it was ridiculously short (between 1-2 years). I was replacing a leaking/failed heater and expected it to be shortly thereafter replaced due to a basement remodel we had planned. I bought the best insulated one as it saved money if we used it for just 2 years. 16 years later, that unit failed (we didn’t do the planned remodel). That was based on the FTC sticker only (plus my actual gas rates).
Edit to add: we then replaced that water heater with an electric heat pump water heater (which is eligible for the IRS tax credit scheme, which requires they "must meet or exceed the highest efficiency tier (not including any advanced tier) established by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE)") and all of the EPA Energy Star rated heat pump ones do, but I'd argue that the heater would still carry the highest CEE rating with or without the Energy Star program, so I still didn't purchase based solely or primarily on any factor that the star under-pinned, but if there was a heat pump water heater that didn't have the sticker, I'd have had to look to be sure it was still eligible for the rebate.
This includes every major appliance in my primary home...and HEPA air cleaners too.
[1] https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal-tax-credits/air-sou...
I honestly don't remember for sure, but I have a vague impression of "significant difference in energy star rating is outweighed by significant difference in purchase price". Could be that was just the particular type of appliance years ago, though.
I was originally looking for a mini fridge like what you’d think of belonging in an American dorm room. In the store, I noticed the medium sized fridges (more akin to what one might think of in a European studio apartment) actually used less energy according to the yellow sticker, so I went with that.
This was a case where I wasn’t really looking for anything very specific, though, so it’s not like I was already limited in options and limited more by that sticker.
Sometimes I do a TCO analysis by subtracting the energy savings over 7 years (or 5, or 10 or whatever I estimate the useful life to be) from the more expensive price of the more energy efficient product. Occasionally it comes out less than the cheaper product.
Energy costs over the lifetime of many appliances types are many multiples of initial purchase price.
But it also seems like one of those things that surely doesn't cost much to keep around either. Getting rid of it is just virtue signaling to anti-climate people.
Working in the manufacturing space, I have no doubt designs will change and energy consumption will go up. They will be able to remove sensors, heat water hotter in dishwashers and clothes washers, run cycles more aggressively, and use cheaper motors (such as HVAC fans). Any item you can remove from the bill of materials adds to the profit directly.
Capital expenditure versus operating expenditure is a common tradeoff discussed in a business sense, and the Energy Star gave a pretty darn good comparison for opex for consumers. Taking that away (even with some of the games that have been played over the years) is a huge loss for consumers.
Just like there was a right-wing grievance attack on education, science, water quality, air quality, due process, food inspections, being bound by the constitution ... Basically anything that seeks to make things better.
They feel oppressed by all of it.
But don't worry. When your food is full of mercury and you're breathing in lead in a few years, the right wing will be there to blame DEI and wokeism for it because that's how they operate: destroy things, blame scapegoats, win elections, repeat.
There's people like Chris Rufo that openly state it's their strategy. None of this is speculative.