EU: New regulations for energy consumption

The new year brings new regulations for maximal energy consumption of domestic appliances. This is the upcoming change for businesses and consumers:

Energy labels for online sales: Retailers will be required to show energy labels when selling products online. This is meant to help consumers when comparing products. It will also strengthen the EU domestic market, says the Energy Commission. About 85 percent of consumers would prefer energy saving products over cheaply produced and more energy consuming products from abroad and therefore making use of the energy label. This would mean 55 billion Euros for european businesses in extra revenue.

Energy labels for cooking appliances: New domestic gas ovens and range hoods will have to have an energy efficiency label. Up until now, only electric ovens were sold with an energy efficiency label.

Automatic standby for networked devices: New networked equipment (such as modems, receivers/decoders, connected televisions, printers, etc.) will have to offer a function that switches the equipment into a low power standby mode if no main task is performed.

Automatic standby for coffee machines: New coffee machines will have to offer a function that switches the machine into a low power standby/off-mode after a specified period of time, depending on the type of machine.

 Saving money and the environment

The new regulations are also meant to save money for european households. About 45 Euros per year. Overall, consumers using only energy efficient products in their homes could be saving €465 annually per household by 2020, says EU Energy Commission.

The environment is also meant to profit. The new measurements are estimated to save 15 million tonns in CO2 production – about the annual emissions of Bucharest. Overall energy production will be reduced to an equivalent of the annually energy consumption of about 1,5 million EU households.

But: The main share of energy consumption in households is still used for heating and warm water. They will be regulated 2017 (Water Heating) and 2019 (Space Heating) to save more energy.