Energy Star fridge standard gets chilly reception

The Energy Star programme for labelling energy efficient appliances has come under fire this month after an article in Consumer Reports magazine criticised the initiative for failing to keep pace with changing technologies.

The article slammed the testing criteria for refrigerators, which is administered for Energy Star by the Department of Energy. DoE criteria calls for iceboxes to be off when testing fridges, it argues, but this stops them being cooled, which would lead to the ice melting. This led to a large disparity between tests using the Energy Star criteria, and Consumer Reports' own testing, where the icebox was left on.

Joseph McGuire, president of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, said that the Association had submitted its own recommendations to the DoE in 2007, asking it to tighten up the language in its specification to avoid "misinterpretation" by vendors when testing their products. "There's no doubt in our mind that they don't have sufficient resources to update their test procedures to keep up to date with developments in technology," he said of the DoE.

"You would think that an agency with responsibility to provide information about seven million refrigerators would also have a responsibility to investigate any evidence that their tests are giving the wrong answer," argued David Goldstein, energy programme co-director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. "This is how we got into the financial crisis we're in today, because no-one did any regulatory oversight."

A DoE spokesperson said that it was aware of the issue and was looking into it internally, but had no other comment on the matter.

In contrast, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which does not handle refrigerator testing, but partners with the DoE on the Energy Star programme, sided with Consumer Reports on the refrigerator issue. "We agree this procedure should be examined, and that the Energy Star specification for refrigerators should be modified as necessary to ensure labeled products deliver promised savings," it said.

However, it rebutted other accusations in the article that too many products passed the Energy Star criteria, and that vendors were certifying their own products without oversight.

This is not the first time that the DoE has been criticised for poor energy conservation standards on appliances. In 2006, it signed a consent order agreeing to publish rules on 22 types of equipment, after 15 states sued the organisation for being up to 13 years behind schedule.

The programme was also criticised last year after taking seven years to update standards for PC energy use, despite rapid improvements in machines energy efficiency. The delay meant that at the start of 2007, 98 per cent of PCs on the market could have qualified to carry the Energy Star label, making accreditation all but worthless.

Additional reporting by James Murray