Studies relevant to appliance labelling in practice

SEVEn and SoWatt have elaborated a report summarising the European experience, challenges and opportunities in the field of market surveillance of the energy label and ecodesign legislation requirements in the EU. The document summarises the findings and recommendations made by four EU projects, organised between 2009 to 2015, and focused on product testing and shop label display monitoring activities.

This report presents a summary of this experience and compares the EUʼs programme to those operated in the peer economies of Australia, China, Japan and the USA to ascertain where the EU programme is most successful and in what ways it could be improved by adopting international best practice.

A study published by the US based Berkeley National Laboratory on the International Comparison of Product Certification and Verification Methods for Appliances has been added to the project website's library section. The document uses several references to the information elaborated within the Come On Labels project.

The report is part of an Energy Labelling Survey which looked to determine compliance against the Energy Label Regulations 2011 on a national level within UK electrical retailers, for regulated white goods and televisions.

An examination of the Australian results of check tests undertaken for the Equipment Energy Efficiency Program between 1 July and 31 December 2011.

The study, by Paul Waide, Lloyd Harrington, and Michael Scholand, conducts an extensive investigation of the energy efficiency standards and labeling programs in place in China, the European Union, India, Japan and the US, the major economies, with a focus on residential, commercial, and industrial appliances and equipment. It documents Minimum Energy Performance Requirements on 24 types of appliances and equipment in these countries and identifies products with the greatest potential for global harmonization. In addition, the study shows that the vast potential for energy and CO₂ savings from upward-oriented harmonization of international standards and labelling regulations would be achieved if the highest existing global regulatory requirements and the best current technology are adopted in the major economies. (19.2MB)

In 2010 the British NMO Enforcement Directorate undertook the first test programme project as part of the ecodesign enforcement work in the sector of domestic refrigerating appliances.

12 models were tested to evaluate the accuracy of claims on the energy label. These include: energy consumption, energy class and volume. (1MB)

A report on analysis, aims and indicative standards for energy efficient products 2009 - 2030. This document discusses the role of product policy in the context of the UK‟s wider energy saving policies. It provides a high-level overview of product policy in the UK and is supported by nine annexes describing specific groups of energy-using products. The impacts of policies on energy demand for these product groups are compared with the Government's aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the 2050 Pathways Report, published in July 2010.

In spite of the overall  success of appliance energy labelling to achieve energy savings, however, there are concerns that compliance with the Energy Labelling Directive may not be fully satisfactory at the level of both the retailers and the manufacturers. A first survey of compliance with Directive 92/75 was carried out at an early stage of the Directive's implementation in European Member States. This did not include the new Member States (Winward et al. 1998). This new survey of compliance conducted during this project aimed to provide evidence on the present degree of compliance with Directive 92/75/EEC both at the level of retailers and manufacturers in all EU Member States and the EEA countries of Norway and Iceland. In a general perspective, this study is connected with an increasing demand on market surveillance in the field of energy-using appliances due to the planned revision of the Energy Labelling Framework Directive 1992/75/EEC1 and the foreseen implementing measures under the Ecodesign Directive 2005/32/EC which will establish the ecodesign requirements. In the Ecodesign Directive, a legal basis to require Member State market surveillance is created with Article 3 of the Directive. In future, the revised Energy Labelling Directive will be aligned with the requirements of the Ecodesign Directive. (2.1MB)

Overview of the energy labelling promotion and shop surveys in Central Europe, carried out under the CEECAP project. (0.9MB)