CE Makers ‘Mixed’ on Benefits of Top-Tier Energy Star, CEA Says

Consumer confusion over differentiating the label of a new top-tier, “most efficient” Energy Star brand is of “particular concern and interest,” CEA said in comments. “There remain mixed feelings among Energy Star program partners about the potential benefits or drawbacks of a most efficient program."

The EPA last month released standards for recognizing the most efficient products under a Top Tier program that it intends to pilot as an extension of the Energy Star brand. TVs, clothes washers, heating and cooling equipment and refrigerator-freezers will be eligible this year for recognition as “most efficient” in their product categories on a “pilot basis,” said Ann Bailey, director of Energy Star product labeling.

CEA wanted the EPA to explore “other ideas” to recognize and boost highly efficient products and “encourage their availability in the marketplace more quickly,” the group said. “CEA is not aware that the EPA has studied or conducted research on alternatives to a most efficient program, including alternatives that could be less costly for the EPA to administer.” The association said it believes the agency should concentrate its efforts on improving the Energy Star brand, including expanding it to cover new products and services.

If the agency decides to move ahead with the most efficient program, “we recommend a stakeholder-driven process to identify the criteria that will be considered in recognizing most efficient products,” CEA said. It’s unclear how the agency chose the products it included in the pilot, the group said, and the “performance criteria remain vague and undefined."

The EPA should coordinate with programs like Topten USA (www.toptenusa.org) and Energy Star to “harmonize the specifications for overlapping product categories” before starting the most efficient program, said the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP). “This would avoid potential consumer confusion and leverage the use of limited resources.” Failure to harmonize specifications also “risks sending mixed signals to the marketplace, which would be counterproductive,” the advocacy group said. NEEP also voiced concerns that the “differentiation between the Energy Star core label and the most efficient label will not be well understood by typical consumers."

Qualification criteria for most efficient products could also lead to “unexpectedly high levels of qualified products,” NEEP said. By setting performance specifications that will “remain static” for a full year, the most efficient program “runs the real risk” that a level that may be appropriate in January of a given year may not be so in September of that year, it said. Like Topten USA, NEEP prefers the most efficient program to recognize a set of top performers that “constantly evolves as the leading edge as efficiency evolves, especially in the case of consumer electronics product categories,” it said. “The Topten USA methodology eliminates the challenge of establishing qualification levels months in advance and misjudging the market.”