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Serious question: has anyone here ever based a purchasing decision on energy star labelling? (As opposed to efficiency/power cost/TCO in general, specifically

• riffraff 1y ago
  Forgive my ignorance as a EU customer, but how would you trust the power/efficiency claims without independent certification? (I suppose that's what the energystar is supposed to provide)
• hristov 1y ago
  The data you need for power cost calculations was also collected by the energy star program.
• toomuchtodo 1y ago
  I just received a $350 rebate on a variable speed pool pump I had installed, because of energy star. https://www.tampaelectric.com/residential/saveenergy/energystarpoolpump/ https://www.tampaelectric.com/residential/saveenergy/energys...
  • bcoates 1y ago
    Oof. My pool pump uses 0 watts, do I qualify? Not sure actively subsidizing recreational novelty uses of electricity is doing anything to save the planet
    • toomuchtodo 1y ago
      My old pool pump used more energy than my new pool pump and it’s cheaper to pay me to replace it versus future generation and emissions by continuing to use a less efficient applicance. I paid $2000 for the new pump, and the utility only offset $350 of that. Energy efficiency is why US electric consumption has been flat for so long (since 2008). Besides lighting, most residential load are appliances (refrigerator, washer, dryer, stove, microwave, pool pumps, TVs, water heater) or HVAC. So, those are the efficiency targets. The cheapest kWh is the one you didn’t have to generate and deliver. Very similar to demand response, where you pay consumers to shed non essential electrical loads (nest thermostat rush house rewards is an example of this) when the grid is at capacity. Similar incentives exist for heat pumps, water heaters, and dryers, as well as for disposing of an old inefficient fridge you might be hanging on to in your garage as a second unit. https://www.gdsassociates.com/electricity-use-flatline/ https://www.gdsassociates.com/electricity-use-flatline/
    • Larrikin 1y ago
      Do you support any government programs that don't directly benefit you?
      • mitthrowaway2 1y ago
        Presumably they do. GP is questioning if it even benefits the environment. (Edit: for reasons specifically related to it being rebates for a pool pump. In most parts of the world a private pool is a symbol of excess and waste, and the GP remarked on how they use less energy by not having one at all).
        • toomuchtodo 1y ago
          It’s fairly straightforward to understand that energy efficiency programs offset combustion generation emissions through avoided energy use. It would’ve taken GP one glance at Wikipedia, if questioning the environment benefits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Star > More than 75 product categories are eligible for the ENERGY STAR label, including appliances, electronics, lighting, heating and cooling systems, and commercial equipment such as food service products. In the United States, the ENERGY STAR label often appears with the EnergyGuide label of eligible appliances to highlight energy-efficient products and compare energy use and operating costs. > One of the most successful voluntary initiatives introduced by the U.S. government, the program has saved 5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, more than US$500 billion in energy costs, and prevented 4 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Elements of the ENERGY STAR program are implemented in Canada, Japan, and Switzerland.
          • ab5tract 1y ago
            It’s weird that they leave the EU letter-grade system out of this discussion.
            • toomuchtodo 1y ago
              I encourage you to update the page accordingly.
    • OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y ago
      The link actually provides some insight into this. It's from TECO, a Florida based electric company. In Florida (and maybe the rest of the US south, idk), a lot of houses have pools and the pumps for those run for hours every day. Even if you don't want to use the pool, if the house has a pool the pump needs to run regularly with filtration and chlorination or else you end up with an expensive, putrid mess to clean up. And of course in most parts of florida you can't drain the pool long term because of how high the water table is. An empty pool is just a concrete shell so without the weight from the water inside it, the pool essentially becomes boyant and tries to float upwards out of the ground, causing potentially thousands to tens of thousands of dollars of damage. So a lot of people are stuck with pools with the water in them. So they are stuck with the pumps running. And regardless of how recreational those pools are, that means a lot of pumps running across the state and that translates into a lot of power usage during the day. So rebates for upgrading to more efficient pumps is an easy way to reduce power usage, reduce costs for people, reduce environmental costs, and reduce unnecessary overall load on the grid. It's an incentive that just makes sense for everyone involved because it provides benefits across the board.
      • cyberax 1y ago
        In Florida, you also absolutely don't want stagnant water because of the possibility of mosquitoes and the associated malaria.
      • toomuchtodo 1y ago
        Indeed, I am stuck with the pool because it was there when I bought the house and filling in the pool can be detrimental to the value of the property (it is a disclosure item when selling). Therefore, I must continue to service the pool to maintain the value of the property. Had the property not had a pool when I acquired it, I would not have installed one.
      • bcoates 1y ago
        https://youtu.be/p2B7yYLn6Kg https://youtu.be/p2B7yYLn6Kg
    • relaxing 1y ago
      If it saves the power company from having to make expensive upgrades then yeah, they should.
    • LeafItAlone 1y ago
      >Not sure actively subsidizing recreational novelty uses of electricity is doing anything to save the planet If that recreational novelty is going to happen regardless, isn’t it better to entice people to do it with lower energy use?
  • happyopossum 1y ago
    > because of energy star. No - your utility used energy star compliance as an easy yes/no for giving you a rebate, but it could still give out rebates without energy star based on a couple of simple specs.
    • ab5tract 1y ago
      Not if those specs are only being published to comply with Energy Star.
• Retric 1y ago
  Yea, in the early days you’d see huge variability in how much energy similar products used. Because of Energy Star that gap has generally shrunk, but that just means it’s working well.
  • SchemaLoad 1y ago
    Largely it's just worked. Products on the market are almost all efficient now because it's blatantly displayed on the front. The most obvious difference left is on fridges. The amount of power consumed varies quite a lot and in ways that are not obvious. Small fridges use a shocking amount of power because they use less efficient coolers without compressors.
    • potato3732842 1y ago
      > Small fridges use a shocking amount of power because they use less efficient coolers without compressors. This is only true of the tiniest fridges, the peltier effect ones that are about the size of a milk crate. Your typical mini fridge has a compressor.
• vampiresdoexist 1y ago
  Yes. My dehumidifier.
  • kcb 1y ago
    Same
• yodon 1y ago
  Yes. 100%. Before energy star, refrigerators were made with heating coils glued to the outer panels because it was cheaper to warm the outside of the fridge to avoid condensation than it was to install adequate insulation inside the fridge. The operating cost of those lightly insulated fridges was much higher, but the parts cost was a few dollars lower. Energy star and those yellow power consumption stickers changed that.
  • timewizard 1y ago
    > Before energy star, refrigerators were made with heating coils glued to the outer panels Do you have any examples of such products? I don't believe I've ever seen one. > it was cheaper to warm the outside of the fridge to avoid condensation A refrigerator has an evaporator inside the fridge to get cold but it must have a condenser on the outside to discharge heat. The outside of the fridge is going to get warm no matter what you do. The only time I've seen an actual heater used is when a fridge is placed outside where temperatures go below freezing. > but the parts cost was a few dollars lower. The labor cost was also significantly lower and the rate of production was higher. > than it was to install adequate insulation inside the fridge They used to be insulated with cork and then fiberglass which were the common technologies for their time. As soon as foam became more prevalent they switched to that. > Energy star and those yellow power consumption stickers changed that. It normalized the patchwork system that existed before it. California, as always, experienced the initial problem and created it's own standards on refrigerators sold in the state. Other states followed, the federal government picked at it slightly, and finally Energy Star came into existence mostly by industry demand.
    • HPsquared 1y ago
      Thinner walls on the fridge would mean greater internal volume. If volume is the only performance metric available, designs would tend towards something like that to maximise sales. That's all in theory though. I wonder if this could be a confusion arising from the use of heating coils to defrost the evaporator coil (auto-defrost). that's a different thing though.
• ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  I will be honest, I have long assumed everything in the store has Energy Star on it, and I am sorta doubtful companies will deliberately make less efficient appliances if it goes away. But it also seems like one of those things that surely doesn't cost much to keep around either. Getting rid of it is just virtue signaling to anti-climate people.
  • atonse 1y ago
    Yep, even if the EnergyStar label goes away, I'm going to want this data when making a purchase to get an idea of long term costs.
    • Spooky23 1y ago
      You’re not going to get it, as the regulation is gone.
      • tomnipotent 1y ago
        It's not a regulation, but an opt-in voluntary program.
    • Muromec 1y ago
      That reminds me of a moment in maybe 90ies when somebody in the local government over here was advocating to close the weather institute because you can just get weather news from TV anyway. That at least had a clear motive -- institute in question was located in a very nice location with a view and there was a line of developers forming to bribe said official and his colleges to get it for pennies and sell some nice apartments there. Institutional collapse is a thing.
  • vineyardmike 1y ago
    Article claims it costs $32M a year, which is effectively free relative to the cost of the remaining government.
  • DavidPeiffer 1y ago
    >...I am sorta doubtful companies will deliberately make less efficient appliances if it goes away. Working in the manufacturing space, I have no doubt designs will change and energy consumption will go up. They will be able to remove sensors, heat water hotter in dishwashers and clothes washers, run cycles more aggressively, and use cheaper motors (such as HVAC fans). Any item you can remove from the bill of materials adds to the profit directly. Capital expenditure versus operating expenditure is a common tradeoff discussed in a business sense, and the Energy Star gave a pretty darn good comparison for opex for consumers. Taking that away (even with some of the games that have been played over the years) is a huge loss for consumers.
• wmf 1y ago
  I think Energy Star (and similar state programs) has driven companies to increase efficiency in many products even if you don't care. (Unfortunately some of the "improvements" have been fake, like dishwashers that don't wash, and this has justifiably turned some people against the program.)
  • kiwijamo 1y ago
    Citation for dishwashers that don't wash. After switching back to dishwash powders (away from tablets -- which I learnt through a Technology Connections video basically don't work since it gets dissolved in the 10mins rinse cycle of most dishwashers) I've yet to have a bad dishwasher experience using powders which gets inserted into the wash cycle (and not the rinse cycle). Even the dirt cheap dishwasher I got as a package with my new house has no issues cleaning close to 100% of dishes on the first try, every single run. Everyone I know that complaints are tablet users and every time I point this out, I get a shrugs "too hard to use powder -- easy to just load a tablet and run it again a second time if I have to". Energy Star has been great on improving the energy efficiency of dishwashes -- we now need the same standard for the chemicals we put into the dishwashers! Banning tablets would be a great improvement IMHO but don't think we'll see that happening.
    • jemmyw 1y ago
      I've never had a problem with the tablets. The ones I use look like the powder is just compressed into tablet form. I do have a more expensive model, the only reason I go for the pricier ones is the noise level - don't really care for any of the other "features".
      • mcny 1y ago
        You should watch the whole video. It is not that long and definitely worth a watch.
        • justapassenger 1y ago
          [dead]
• eclipticplane 1y ago
  Without Energy Star or regulations, what incentive do manufacturers have to display this information, and display it accurately? Consumers cannot hold manufacturers accountable. Even boycotts are under legal scrutiny. Our only option are class action lawsuits, which take years or longer and can be considered a cost of doing business, and have been stymied by binding arbitration contracts.
  • smitty1e 1y ago
    Your point is still largely true, but it is worth noting that, in the age of social media, the customer tail can wag the corporate dog. See: Bud Light.
    • pixl97 1y ago
      I mean not really. You'll end up with boycotts around potential political reasons but almost no effective ones around technical reasons.
      • fngjdflmdflg 1y ago
        Agreed that technical specs cannot easily be crowdsourced. And even comprehensive reviews quickly get outdated when new products release. I remember there used to be a Google engineer who would review USB-C cables on Amazon for compliance.[0] After looking at this again Amazon apparently ended up banning the sale of out of spec cables altogether. That kind of thing is the only real way to protect consumers. We can't rely on Google engineers to leave reviews for our products on Amazon. I do think products with clearly defined technical specs should in general be reported to the consumer. Same thing with nutrition labels. The lower the skill needed to evaluate something and the more well defined the problem space is, the easier it is to crowd source. For example Open Street Map works because the barrier to entry is relatively low and new cities aren't coming out every day. Similarly IMDB has a section that allows users to give their own parental rating to movies with their own explanation. That can compete with MPA film ratings because again the barrier to entry is low and movies don't change after they are released (in general). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Leung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Leung
• SoftTalker 1y ago
  Rarely. But sometimes I will buy a lower-rated model because they are cheaper, simpler and more reliable.
• technofiend 1y ago
  Absolutely! I plan to buy a mini split, and efficiency is the biggest driver after properly sizing the unit for my space. Energy costs add up when you live where your air conditioner can run non-stop for months at a time.
  • bushbaba 1y ago
    generally its not energy star, but online reviews/audits of efficiency under various scenarios. Just like how for EVs we don't generally use MPGe but the range tests from YouTube & Blog reviewers.
    • foogazi 1y ago
      For gas powered cars I did look at mpg
  • happyopossum 1y ago
    Let’s be honest - you’re going to buy a mini split based on its capacity and SEER rating, not an energy star label.
    • OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y ago
      Isn't the yellow energy star label what generally gets the SEER rating put front and center on a product instead of hidden on whatever page of the spec sheet/manual?
      • sokoloff 1y ago
        The yellow Energy Guide sticker is not part of Energy Star. The former is managed by the FTC and is required on all products in some categories. Energy Star is the blue and white label stickers granted to products meeting some energy efficiency levels and is managed by the EPA.
    • metaphor 1y ago
      Bad faith argument, and certainly not the case for homeowners intending to leverage certain tax incentives[1]. When I tapped this two years ago, it was for a ducted heat pump system replacement where the only immutable requirement was that the system had to have earned the ENERGY STAR label. SEER2 rating was a mere secondary consideration that had no impact on credit qualification; 14.8 was my saddle point. At the time, ductless mini-splits had to be ENERGY STAR certified and SEER2 > 16 to qualify. [1] https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal-tax-credits/air-source-heat-pumps https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal-tax-credits/air-sou...
• Someone1234 1y ago
  I'll filter appliances at big box stores by Energy Star, and then will side by side the run cost per year estimates. Do people NOT utilize Energy Star when making purchasing decisions?
  • zdragnar 1y ago
    I don't think I ever have. I've gone by customer and professional reviews, physical size, presence of features and anti-features (I won't get anything IoT-ified), but the energy star rating hasn't ever been a factor. I honestly don't remember for sure, but I have a vague impression of "significant difference in energy star rating is outweighed by significant difference in purchase price". Could be that was just the particular type of appliance years ago, though.
    • ab5tract 1y ago
      That sounds like a classic upfront cost fallacy, especially if you haven’t revisited it with actual calculations and for other appliance types.
      • zdragnar 1y ago
        Just for kicks I thought I'd look around to see how my memory was, and I realized I was thinking of the yellow energy guide numbers. Since there's no numbers attached to the energy star certification itself, it's a meaningless label that doesn't really tell what the difference is. With the energy guide labels, at least there's a point of comparison. Even then, the difference between models of a few types of appliances I checked were typically in the 1-3% of the product cost range. The single biggest I could find online happened to be in TVs, where one brand's 65" was half the estimated annual electric cost of another- a savings of $20 per year! It'd pay for the difference in price between the models in 3 years, and pay for itself in 25! Granted, I didn't see numbers for the likely worst offenders: central air conditioning and electric ovens.
        • relaxing 1y ago
• foogazi 1y ago
  Yes, I used it when picking out a refrigerator and TV
• Spivak 1y ago
  Literally the "Energy Star" logo, no. But the big yellow datasheet sticker which has its power usage and other info, yes.
• metaphor 1y ago
  Yes[1]. This includes every major appliance in my primary home...and HEPA air cleaners too. [1] https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal-tax-credits/air-source-heat-pumps https://www.energystar.gov/about/federal-tax-credits/air-sou...
• freen 1y ago
  100% Energy costs over the lifetime of many appliances types are many multiples of initial purchase price.
• koliber 1y ago
  Absolutely. Sometimes I do a TCO analysis by subtracting the energy savings over 7 years (or 5, or 10 or whatever I estimate the useful life to be) from the more expensive price of the more energy efficient product. Occasionally it comes out less than the cheaper product.
• sokoloff 1y ago
  I’ve made purchasing decisions based on TCO projections from the yellow Energy Guide stickers (managed by the FTC). I’ve never knowingly made one based on the blue Energy Star stickers. (However if some kickback or tax credit scheme depended on those stickers, then I may have made a decision influenced by the kickback and therefore by the Energy Star sticker.) One particular example was a tradeoff calculation for water heaters. I forget what the exact TCO tradeoff point was but it was ridiculously short (between 1-2 years). I was replacing a leaking/failed heater and expected it to be shortly thereafter replaced due to a basement remodel we had planned. I bought the best insulated one as it saved money if we used it for just 2 years. 16 years later, that unit failed (we didn’t do the planned remodel). That was based on the FTC sticker only (plus my actual gas rates). Edit to add: we then replaced that water heater with an electric heat pump water heater (which is eligible for the IRS tax credit scheme, which requires they "must meet or exceed the highest efficiency tier (not including any advanced tier) established by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE)") and all of the EPA Energy Star rated heat pump ones do, but I'd argue that the heater would still carry the highest CEE rating with or without the Energy Star program, so I still didn't purchase based solely or primarily on any factor that the star under-pinned, but if there was a heat pump water heater that didn't have the sticker, I'd have had to look to be sure it was still eligible for the rebate.
• LeafItAlone 1y ago
  A few years ago I needed a fridge for my hobby space. One where I could store various substances that I didn’t want stored by my food. I was originally looking for a mini fridge like what you’d think of belonging in an American dorm room. In the store, I noticed the medium sized fridges (more akin to what one might think of in a European studio apartment) actually used less energy according to the yellow sticker, so I went with that. This was a case where I wasn’t really looking for anything very specific, though, so it’s not like I was already limited in options and limited more by that sticker.