Although the energy star designation can be very useful as a starting point, there can be problems with simply buying an appliance or an electronic product simply based on it's energy star rating.

First, appliances and electronics that have an energy star rating vary tremendously in their energy efficiency. What I mean is that if you see an Energy Star rating on 2 different refrigerators, for instance, those 2 refrigerators may still have very different energy efficiencies. Make sure that you look at the specific kWh rating on each appliance to see which is the best instead of simply buying any appliance with an Energy Star sign on it. This can save you thousands over the lifetime of the product,

Second, it has been shown that the energy star ratings are not always correct. In some cases a particular product may use vastly more energy than the Energy Star sign stated. The best way to compare energy efficiency of different products is to actually calculate the power used to operate the product for one hour and compare these numbers for various products.

There are specific directions as to how to calculate the power consumption of any electronic product or appliance at MoreEnergySavings.com

The site also does the calculation and comparison for you for virtually all refrigerators, TVs and more that are currently on the market.

Here is a link that might be useful: More Energy Savings

hover2gb - I'll wish you all the best and I hope the site you mentioned improves greatly in the coming weeks and months. You referenced it here and in other threads earlier today. Today is the first day you joined here. I won't be going back to your site until I read here that it has fewer ads.

Everyone agrees EnergyStar's current methods have visible flaws. About EnergyStar, which is a dumb rating system, we can agree it will get replaced with some other method one day.

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-- Let this thread now opened here be a discussion for what we would like to see EnergyStar account for in its Next Generation of criteria that will one day replace the current set of criteria.

The good thing that EnergyStar and EnerGuide have done is to make our society think more all the time about consumption, and in so doing the net result is less consumption. Manufacturers got swayed to get involved without being fed money to do so. Sounds like it worked up till now.

I saw on an EnergyStar site that the average annual energy consumption of new refrigerators, in kWh/year, was
1984 1990 1997 1999 2004
1457, 1044, 664 , 664 , 465

This was for top-mounted Refrigerators in the size range of 16.5Â18.4 cu. ft. which I believe was considered normal size back in 1984.

Today's refrigerators are much better energy performers than older models. This came about without a scandal and without wasting a billion or two on incentives. So even a dumb measuring system can make a positive impact in the right direction.

Let this new thread be to discuss the ideal criteria for an ideal future rating system for appliances.

-david

Here is a link that might be useful: Energy savings of new refrigerator vs. 10 year old model