Sep
18
Are Appliances as Good as the EPA Rating?
September 18, 2008 | 3 Comments
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy run the “Energy Star” program to award the labels that lead consumers to think one product is more efficient than another. They set standards, lay out the testing procedures and then manufacturers run self-done tests and sell based on their results.
There isn’t any third party or independent verification. Nor are the standards regularly updated. In the October issue of Consumer Reports the matter is reviewed with these glaring faults in place. The program is 15 years old covering some 50 categories in which claims of 10% to 25% more efficiency are made. The EPA is saying its disappointed in the article and that it misleads consumers.
But the test here is the facts. In preparing the article titled “Save Energy, Save Money” Consumer Reports tested some Energy Star products. To some surprise many draw more current that the standards set by the program, not even hitting the maximums allowed. Consumer Reports thinks the absence of standards allows manufacturers to benefit without providing the consumer benefit. Feeling mislead? You are being misled.
The story’s case in point is a refrigerator with a self-awarded “Energy Star” rating that is labeled to use 547-kilowatt hours annually. Unknown to consumers is the rating is done without the icemaker on, and it does hit the number. But who buys an icemaker and not use it? When its turned on the kilowatt use is just more than doubled! It’s a loophole, one of those regulation issues that makes one wonder why the bureaucrats get paychecks.
Now the refrigerator maker gets the rating so the price can reflect it, you pay for the savings, but don’t get them. Does that seem right? Its obviously not, so why is the EPA disappointed? Where is the rating for the product as its equipped? The disappointment should be in the minds of the buyers.
This kind of reporting is critical to our welfare. It puts the lie in the EPA claims that the program “slashed” greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 27 million vehicles so saving $16 billion in energy costs. Bogus. We should expect better, at least some verifiable facts and the truth from government agencies.
Consumer Reports is the publication of the Consumers Union a nonprofit with a long a luminous history of being on the side of people. Apparently some leaders at the Energy Star program met with Consumers Union conceding, “Federal test procedures haven’t kept pace with technology.”
Also commenting in the article is David B. Goldstein, codirector of the energy program at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council saying, “A number of test procedures are out of date or problematic. Part of the reason is that the DOE doesn’t have the staff they need to do very much on test procedures. There’s also willpower. They don’t want to do it.”
Coming up with standards is a disaster too. Its reported that the DOE takes three years to publish new rules including the comment period that takes in the views of manufacturers who have a vested interest in easy to meet standards. That makes it a diluted standard to start with, as Jennifer Thorne Amann, from the nonprofit American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy points out, “Because of all the parties involved, you may get a level that isn’t as aggressive as it could be.”
Now to add insult to injury, it takes three more years for any updated rules to take effect. What would be offered now wouldn’t be a matter for the market until 2014!
For those of us harping on “More Efficiency” can feel really betrayed by our government. The only way around this is to test for oneself. That’s easy and much cheaper than I expected:
Kill A Watt Meter
The Kill A Watt is a little meter that reads back the electricity consumed, just like the utility’s meter. With an LCD screen you can get kilowatts hours, line frequency, volts, watts, current and the power factor of any appliance with a plug. You might want to have a good quality extension cord to make best use of this thing. Stunning at less than $20.00. The only limit is 15 amps total current.
One might expect the best of the retailers to have such a thing on hand to assure buyers of the value in the products they sell. But that is expecting too much, just take one along when shopping. Plugged in for a few seconds will tell you the watt draw of anything you might consider so making quick identification of the lower watt draw obvious and easy.
Its not that hard, but it shouldn’t be. Those Energy Star tags ought to mean something worthwhile and taking one’s own tests while shopping is a bit of work. After all the taxpayers have paid for the value in the Energy Star label even though it’s not worth anything.
On the other hand, having my own Kill A Watt (or Kill A Watt EZ) has told just me what not to use and what to replace first. It should pay for itself many times over very quickly.
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During his professional career, Mark Kaganov has published several books and technical papers in the areas of research of plastic materials, the economics of manufacturing, the technology of ion-selective electrodes, QMS, EMS and Internet business. He …
[…] Are Appliances as Good as the EPA Rating New Energy and Fuel Posted by root 5 minutes ago (https://newenergyandfuel.com) Sep 18 2008 its reported that the doe takes three years to publish new rules including the comment period that takes in the views of manufacturers who Discuss | Bury | News | Are Appliances as Good as the EPA Rating New Energy and Fuel […]
[…] Are Appliances as Good as the EPA Rating New Energy and Fuel Posted by root 9 minutes ago (https://newenergyandfuel.com) Sep 18 2008 its reported that the doe takes three years to publish new rules including the comment period that takes in the views of manufacturers who Discuss | Bury | News | Are Appliances as Good as the EPA Rating New Energy and Fuel […]