The greening of white goods – what is improving and what is not: analysis of 17 years of sales data in Australia

摘要

Australia has had energy labelling for white goods since themid 1980’s. Since 1993, market data on white goods sales hasbeen purchased from a commercial agency. Provided modeland price data is cross matched with detailed model attributedata such as capacity, performance and energy consumptiontaken from the Australian labelled products mandatory registrationsystem. The paper explores the changes that have occurredin white goods over the past 17 years.The refrigerator-freezer market has moved from direct coolingdomination to being virtually 100 % frost free. The energyconsumption declined at 2.9 % per annum. For separate freezers,the energy consumption has declined at 3.1 % per annum. Theimpact of stringent minimum energy performance standardsintroduced in 2005 is spectacular for refrigerators and freezerswith a relative fall in energy of 25 % (from 2003 to 2005) for refrigerators.Refrigerator size is stable, while average stand alonefreezer size has dramatically decreased over the past 6 years.For clothes washers, there is an ongoing market shift fromvertical axis machines to European style drum machines since2003. Curiously, within each type, there has been little changein energy efficiency. The overall energy consumption has decreasedby 30 % in 7 years due to the change in technologyshare. The capacity of washers continues to grow.For dishwashers, the energy and water consumption has decreasedat an amazing 3 % pa. However, the energy consumptionhas stabilised since 2006 as products appear to be hittingtechnological limits to further efficiency improvements whilemaintaining performance.Clothes dryer efficiency has been static for the past 10 years.The arrival of heat pump dryers on the market in 2009 couldimpact if they manage to gain significant market share.All appliances analysed have shown a spectacular decrease inprice in real terms over the study period while reducing theirenergy consumption.