Tracking the energy efficiency of whitegoods in Australia

Tracking the energy efficiency of whitegoods in Australia

Authors:

Lloyd Harrington

Organisation of Presenter:

Energy Efficient Strategies, Australia

Abstract:

Australia has operated an energy labelling program for whitegoods since the mid-1980s. Since 1993, market data on total sales for refrigerators, freezers, clothes washers, clothes dryers and dishwashers has been purchased by Australian governments. Information on model number and actual price has been cross matched with the regulator database to provide detailed sales weighted trends. The latest report covers 1993 to 2014, providing a period of 22 years of continuous sales data.

This paper explores the changes in efficiency that occurred over the past 21 years. In this period refrigerator-freezer energy consumption has continued to decline at around 2.5% per annum despite slight increases in volume. For clothes washers, there has been a strong shift from top loaders to drum machines (horizontal axis) since 2005, but within each product type, there has been little change in efficiency. For dishwashers, the energy and water consumption has continued to decrease at 2.7% per annum over the study period. Clothes dryers are a product where there has been little movement in product performance. However, since 2010, heat pump dryers are starting to make an impression in the market, with over 6% share by 2014. Heat pump dryers have an energy consumption of less than 50% of a conventional dryer.

A comprehensive price-energy analysis for refrigerators and freezers (using actual price paid matched with energy) demonstrates that, within the bounds of the market of available products, there is little apparent correlation between price and energy for most product categories. All appliance types covered have showed strong falls in real price over the analysis period.