Question:
- What are the reasons for introducing new EU energy labels?
- For which product categories will the new energy labels apply?
- When will the new energy labels become effective?
- What do the new energy labels look like?
- What are the consumer benefits of the new energy labelling?
- What does the Ecodesign Package mean?
Applies to:
- dishwashers
- washing machines
- washer-dryers
- refrigerators (including wine cellars)
Answer:
1. To make energy labels more understandable for consumers and help them make better-informed purchasing choices, the European Commission adopted new energy efficiency labels covering appliances mentioned above.
Since its introduction twenty years ago, the success of energy labelling has contributed to the development of increasingly energy-efficient products. This has made the current labelling system too complicated.
In 2017, the EU agreed clearer energy efficiency labelling rules, by moving from the current A+++ to G scale to an A to G energy scale, which is simpler and well understood by consumers.
2. In our products, new "rescaled" energy labels will be introduced in the following appliances:
- dishwashers
- washing machines
- washer-dryers
- refrigerators, including wine storage fridges
3. These new labels will be visible for European consumers in physical stores and online as of March 1st 2021
The new regulations will also apply in non-EU countries (e.g. Norway, Switzerland)
4. Depending on the product, the energy labels will display not only electricity consumption but also other energy and non-energy information, with intuitive pictograms, to compare products and perform a better-informed purchase choice: information about water used per washing cycle, storing capacity, noise emitted, etc.
A new element in these labels is a QR code with which consumers will be able to get additional, official (non-commercial) information by scanning the code with a smartphone. This data will become available to any European citizen in the next few months in the EPREL EU database.
(source: https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-19-1596_en.htm )
dishwashers, washer-dryers, washing machines
refrigerators, wine coolers
5. The European Commission estimations value the total annual final energy savings of these new labels by 2030 at 38 TWh/year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of Hungary. The Energy Labelling Package constitutes an important contribution to the EU's energy and climate targets.
6. Early July 2019, the Commission plans to adopt a set of 11 ecodesign regulations (the Ecodesign Package), covering the mentioned above product groups with the new labels and 5 additional product groups (for which no label is foreseen).
Ecodesign regulation tackle aspects complementary to the energy labelling, by setting minimal requirements on aspects such as energy use in standby, reparability, availability of spare parts or facilitating dismantling and recycling once the product will be at its end of life, thus supporting the implementation of the circular economy.
Altogether, this new set of measures is expected to bring additional annual energy savings by 2030 at the level of 94 TWh per year, more than the annual electricity consumption of Belgium and Luxembourg.
sources:
https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-19-1596_en.htm
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/sustainability/ecodesign_en
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/list-regulations-product-groups-energy-efficient-products
