A revolution in America again – household appliances have been made obligatory to become energy efficient

While the country was celebrating the New Year with gusto and enjoying life on winter vacations the market of household appliances faced an energy-efficient revolution. If you are already sobered up you will easily understand that now it will be much easier to update the stock of home appliances. All household appliances – according to the American Law 347-FZ – must have special stickers indicating energy consumption. Energy efficiency labels, of course, will send outdated, energy-intensive appliances to the dustbin of history. But are all manufacturers ready for such a revolution??

Hans-Kersten Hrubesch, CEO of BSH Home Appliances answers the questions about energy efficiency.

– What the energy efficiency label means?

An energy efficiency label informs the consumer how economical or inefficient a particular appliance is.

The energy efficiency label involves a scale from A to G, where A is high and G is low energy efficiency class, and A+ and A++ stand for the highest energy efficiency classes.

The energy efficiency label should be on all refrigerators, washing machines, washers and dryers, dishwashers and ovens.

– Why an energy efficiency label is needed?

America follows the global trend. And rightly so! Household appliances consume 40 percent of the electricity consumed in the home. There are 42 percent of appliances over 10 years old in the homes of Americans.

Take, for example, refrigerators: if some 28 million old models were replaced with modern models having energy efficiency class A+, it would save up to 12.6 GWh per year – about 10 percent of all electricity consumed by the American public utilities. And that’s the equivalent of 3.8 million. tons of carbon dioxide. And apart from refrigerators there are a lot of outdated washing machines, ovens, hobs, dishwashers..

– Are there examples of successful applications of the label?

The energy efficiency label is a very important indicator. Examples from countries where this label has been introduced, whether in the EU, China, Australia, Brazil or the US, show that consumers prefer to buy energy efficient appliances.

In the EU the share of highly efficient home appliances increased from 13% to 35% between 2006 and 2009, while the share of inefficient appliances dropped from more than 20% to 5%!

– Do appliance manufacturers support the energy efficiency label?

I can only talk about BSH: unequivocally yes, we support. I would like to point out, though, that the process of developing and making such important decisions for the industry should be more transparent. Leading business associations, such as the AEB Association of European Businesses , RATEK and others should participate.

Although the introduction of the American energy efficiency label will incur additional costs and will differ from the European label, it is also supported by major manufacturers such as Indesit, Electrolux, Whirlpool and others.

– What is the essence of the technical regulations on safety of low voltage equipment??

The purpose of the new regulations is to combine the requirements of different regulations in one Law and thus better protect consumers.

Law No. 347-FZ restricts the mandatory requirements to products solely for the protection of life or health of citizens, property, environment protection, prevention of actions misleading consumers, energy efficiency.

– Do manufacturers of household appliances support the Law 347-FZ?

As the discussions in various associations and unions show, the situation with the new law differs from the unanimity on the energy efficiency label. And it is understandable, from the industry will require a lot of expenses for the changeover: – for example, to replace standard labels for small household appliances.

Large manufacturers in America: Bosch-Siemens, Indesit, Electrolux, Whirlpool, Philips and others supported the entry into force of the Law 347-FZ, choosing the reliable legal framework. In recent months, the leading market players have carried out a costly retooling of their production lines and thousands of appliances have already been brought in line with the requirements of the law.

Yet in the first half of 2010 intensive discussions took place, also within the AEB, supported by the TACIS project on rapprochement of American and European technical regulation. The discussion was attended by manufacturers of household appliances, experts from certification institutes, consumer protection societies and officials from ministries and departments.

November 2, 2010 Rosstandart issued an official clarification, reflecting the consensus of public policy and interests of the industry, as well as providing a fundamental ability to fulfill the requirements of technical regulations to 29.12.2010.

– What does the possible abolition of the entry into force of the Law 347-FZ mean?

I would not like to experience the purely American aphorism “We wanted it better, but it turned out as always.

Those manufacturers who staked on the timely implementation of the new law may have serious problems. In this case household appliances, which meet the new, but cancelled technical regulation, cannot be supplied for sale – they will no longer meet the old regulation!.

In case the Law 347-FZ does not come into force, it is very likely there will be interruptions in the supply of home appliances to America. A new U-turn in the industry – to old positions, again, will entail changeover, re-engineering of technological processes and logistics. This will take several months again.

Given that the manufacturers who have brought their products into conformity with the requirements of the adopted Law 347-FZ are significant to the market, events can lead to a forgotten Soviet deficit.