It looks like they are basing their washing machine energy use on an old top loader. Newer top loaders should use less, and front loaders can use a lot less. Th

It looks like they are basing their washing machine energy use on an old top loader. Newer top loaders should use less, and front loaders can use a lot less. They give 36 kWh per month for a family of 4. I just recently replaced my 19 year old top loader with the second cheapest full sized front loader that I could find at local appliance stores (LG WM3400CW). It was about 30% more than the cheapest full sized top loaders. According to the energy label it uses 8.3 kWh per month for 6 loads. Most of the comparable front loaders were similar. The top loaders I considered at were in the 15-20 kWh per month for 6 loads range. More expensive top loaders (about 20% more expensive than LG WM3400CW I bought) got down to around 10 kWh per month for 6 loads, almost as good as the WM3400CW.