New EU rules aim to reduce energy consumption of household electrical appliances

Last Thursday, the European Commission published EU rules for refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, televisions and lamps. Under the leadership of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) as well as the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and the German Federal Environmental Agency collaborated on the measures.

Ecodesign Directive

Within the EU, the Ecodesign Directive regulates the minimum requirements for the environmentally compatible design of energy consumption-relevant products, and labels with the familiar colored scale provide information about the energy efficiency class.

Household electrical appliances produced or imported for the European market from spring or fall 2021 will have to further reduce their energy consumption in the future. For the first time, the regulations also include requirements for reparability and recyclability. This is intended to extend the service life of the appliances and facilitate their maintenance, reuse and recycling.

Manufacturers must also keep many spare parts on hand for up to ten years after a model was last placed on the market, as well as repair instructions.

In terms of efficiency 

From March 2021, refrigerators, washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, monitors and televisions and, from September 2021, lamps will be identified with a new energy label.

The "plus classes" disappear and the scale again ranges from A to G. Efficiency class A remains free for the time being. This is an incentive for manufacturers to return to the top class through further innovations in the coming years. The familiar color gradation from red to dark green will be retained in a new design. A QR code will become part of the labels: This means that in future it will be possible to read out additional information on the respective device using a smartphone.

"The Ecodesign Directive continues to be a European success story in terms of energy savings and now also resource efficiency. The new ambitious requirements ensure that all actors in the European Union act according to the same rules and that the circular economy is driven forward," says Dr. Floris Akkerman, Head of the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Unit at BAM.

According to the EU Commission's estimate, the new regulations will save around 167 terawatt hours of energy per year by 2030. This is equivalent to Denmark's annual consumption or over 46 million metric tons of CO₂.

www.bam.de