People shopping for appliances often look for the Energy Star symbol. The U.S.-based program says its blue seal of approval on energy-efficient appliances saves households an average of $450 a year on their utility bills.
Since its launch in 1992, Energy Star appliances also have helped prevent 4 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions — the main cause of climate change.
But the program’s future is unclear. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has announced an agency reorganization plan under which its Energy Star offices would be eliminated.
That would make it more difficult for customers to find energy-efficient appliances. Here is a look at how Energy Star works, with tips on finding energy-efficient appliances if the program goes away.
How Energy Star works
Energy Star is a voluntary labeling program.
The EPA sets energy efficiency standards for various machines, then companies that produce them can try to hit or exceed those standards. If they do, they get the Energy Star sticker, certifying that a given product works as well as a standard product but uses less energy.
There’s an incentive for companies to make products that earn that sticker because state and local utility rebate programs, as well as federal tax incentives, base qualifying appliances on the program.
Consumers who want to save money through incentives and lower gas and electric bills know to look for it. And the program says that about 90% of households recognize the symbol.
Qualifying specifications vary depending on the appliance. The requirements consider the amount of energy consumed when a machine is turned off, the inclusion of a low-power or “sleep” mode and a minimum efficiency rating when it’s operating.
If Energy Star goes away
Finding and buying energy-efficient products without that certification would be harder, according to Elizabeth Hewitt, an associate professor of technology and society at New York’s Stony Brook University.
“You have to become a really savvy shopper,” Hewitt said.
It would mean consumers searching for, say, a dishwasher, would have to put together a list of options, gather specifications that come with each product, compare them, and recognize which numbers indicate that the dishwasher is energy-efficient.
Specifications for a washing machine might include how many clothes can fit in a load, gallons of water per load and the electricity required to run a cycle. A furnace’s specs focus on how good it is at converting energy into heat, how much of that heat leaks and how well its fan does at blowing hot air into a house.
Converting all of those numbers into a single seal of approval would be complicated.
The concern, said Ben Stapleton, executive director of the U.S. Green Building Council California, a nonprofit focused on sustainable building, is that the extra steps consumers would have to take to find an energy-efficient appliance probably would deter people from prioritizing energy efficiency.
“If we’re just relying on the manufacturer and relying on people to go through the manual to see what the power draw is, it’s hard to imagine that being effective,” Stapleton said.
Tips for picking appliances
If Energy Star were to go away, utilities would need to figure out a new way of determining which appliances qualify for their incentive programs, according to Mark Kresowik, senior policy director for the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Consumer Reports, an organization that does independent product reviews, can provide information about appliances and their performance, but it requires a subscription to access some of its more detailed information.
The Consortium for Energy Efficiency, a collaboration primarily of utilities, has its own energy-efficiency standards. Those standards are designed with Energy Star in mind, but Kresowik said incentive programs could shift to using product specifications.
The fate of Energy Star is still uncertain. The broad reorganization of the EPA would eliminate or reorganize large parts of the offices that keep the program running, but the EPA hasn’t confirmed plans to shut it down.