{"id":8089,"date":"2010-07-29T08:13:43","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T13:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sustainablog.org\/?p=8089"},"modified":"2010-07-29T08:13:43","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T13:13:43","slug":"appliance-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/appliance-efficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising Appliance Efficiency: A Big Win for Consumers and the Climate"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n By Lester R. Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n There are enormous opportunities to use energy more efficiently. Investing in energy efficiency is often far cheaper than expanding the energy supply to meet growing demand. Efficiency investments typically yield a high rate of return, saving consumers money, and can help fight climate change by avoiding carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning additional fossil fuels. Just as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) offer great electricity savings<\/a> over incandescent light bulbs, a similar range of efficiencies is available for many household appliances, such as refrigerators<\/a>* and home electronics<\/a>.*<\/p>\n The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 was designed to exploit some of these potential savings. It raises appliance efficiency standards high enough to close 29 power plants that burn coal, the most carbon intensive of the fossil fuels. Other provisions in the act\u2014such as tax incentives that encourage the adoption of energy-efficient technologies, a shift to more combined heat and power generation, and the adoption of real-time pricing of electricity (a measure to discourage optional electricity use during peak demand periods)\u2014would cut electricity demand enough to close an additional 37 coal-fired power plants. Appliance efficiency standards and other measures in the bill would also reduce natural gas consumption substantially. All together, these measures are projected to reduce consumer electricity and gas bills in 2020 by more than $20 billion.<\/p>\n Although the U.S. Congress passed legislation raising efficiency for some 30 categories of household and industrial appliances\u2014from refrigerators to industrial-scale electric motors\u2014the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has for many years failed to write the standards needed to actually implement the legislation. To remedy this, just days after taking office, President Barack Obama ordered the DOE to write regulations to translate law into policy.<\/p>\n Globally the big appliance challenge is China. In 1980 its appliance manufacturers produced only 50,000 refrigerators, virtually all for domestic use. In 2008 they produced 48 million refrigerators, 90 million color TVs, and 42 million clothes washers, many of which were for export.<\/p>\n Market penetration of these modern appliances in urban China today is already similar to that in industrial countries. For every 100 urban households there are 138 color TV sets, 97 washing machines, and 88 room air conditioners. Even in rural areas there are 95 color TVs and 46 washing machines for every 100 households. This phenomenal growth in household appliance use in China, along with the extraordinary growth of industry, raised China\u2019s electricity use 11-fold from 1980 to 2007. Although China established standards for most appliances by 2005, these are not strictly enforced.<\/p>\n The other major concentration of home appliances is in the European Union, home to 495 million people. Greenpeace notes<\/a> that even though Europeans on average use half as much electricity as Americans do, they still have a large potential for reducing their usage. A refrigerator in Europe uses scarcely half as much electricity as one in the United States, for example, but the most efficient refrigerators on the market today use only one fourth as much electricity as the average refrigerator in Europe, suggesting a huge potential for cutting electricity use.<\/p>\n But this is not the end of the efficiency trail, since advancing technology keeps raising the potential. Japan\u2019s Top Runner Program<\/a> is the world\u2019s most dynamic system for upgrading appliance efficiency standards. In this system, the most efficient appliances marketed today set the standard for those sold tomorrow. Using this program, between the late 1990s and the end of 2007 Japan raised efficiency standards for individual appliances by anywhere from 15 to 83 percent, depending on the appliance. This is an ongoing process that continually exploits advances in efficiency technologies. A 2008 report indicates that the Top Runner Program for all appliances is running ahead of the ambitious initial expectations\u2014and often by a wide margin.<\/p>\nAppliance Efficiency Initiatives around the Globe<\/h2>\n
Standby Power: the Elephant in the Room<\/h2>\n