We have made a small step forward this week. As of Thursday 1st July, domestic fridges and freezers with high energy consumption can't be put on the market throughout the European Union thanks to the Ecodesign Directive. Until now, these products were graded - under the EU energy label scheme - from A (including A+ and A++) to G in all EU member states. From now onwards, the lower-efficiency cooling devices will be taken off the shelves, leaving only A, A+ and A++ products for sale.
The changes happening this month are relatively small, given that most fridges and freezers on the EU market were already mostly rated A and upwards. However the minimum requirements will become more stringent in 2012 and 2014, and ultimately lead to savings of around 6 TWh/year by 2020 and 14 TWh/year by 2025, which is as much as the residential electricity consumption of Portugal. There are obviously reasons to celebrate. Well done!
However there is one pretty confusing issue regarding the energy labeling that needs to be solved. What happens when consumers buy an A fridge and think they are being very clever in chosing an efficient one? This A fridge is now the one with the lowest efficiency on the market! We now really need to ensure that we go back to having a properly adjusted A–G energy label where the top of the market is really the top of the market, rather than asking consumers to chose between A, A+, A++ and soon A+++.
Overall, however, we are very happy. The initial draft of the European Commission (in 2008) was proposing a much longer timing (ban of A products in 2015). Through our campaign we managed to persuade decision makers to advance the ban of A products by 3 years!