From Sept 1, energy labels will be revised to carry estimated annual energy cost and energy consumption information, in order to educate consumers of the life-cycle cost of an appliance before purchasing it.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) is enhancing its Mandatory Energy Labelling Scheme (MELS), and extending the Minimum Energy Performance Standards to include more appliances.
To better differentiate more efficient models from the less efficient ones and reflect the improvements in the energy efficiencies of appliances in today’s market, the energy rating system will be recalibrated, the NEA said,
Under the new rating system, the most efficient models will be awarded 5-ticks, while 1-tick products will make up the lowest efficiency band.
The “no-ticks” band will be removed as some consumers were confused when they came across labels without any ticks.
The NEA said the energy label design will also be updated to boost its readability.
To retain consumers’ familiarity of the previous energy label, however, the rounded-top, rating descriptor and rating scale design will be retained.
The improvements to MELS and MEPS aim to encourage more households to choose energy efficient appliances with low life-cycle costs, and in turn, help them reduce their utilities bills and cut greenhouse gas emissions in the long run, the NEA said.
Next month, the MELS will be extended to televisions, making them the first appliance under the MELS umbrella to carry the revised labels.
The NEA said MELS could help heighten consumers’ awareness of the energy performance of such televisions and assist them in their purchasing decisions, especially since consumers may be attracted to buying large screen high-performance televisions.
The NEA estimates that Singapore could potentially save between S$12.2 million and S$19.7 million annually on energy savings if everyone switched from low to medium or high efficiency televisions.
Following the NEA’s consultation with suppliers, the revised energy labels will officially come into effect for air-conditioners, refrigerators and clothes dryers in September this year.
The NEA intends to progressively extend MELS to other energy intensive home appliances.
Besides the energy labelling scheme, the Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS), which is aimed at helping consumers lower their energy consumption at homes, will be implemented for clothes dryers next month, and general lighting later this year.
The NEA’s household energy consumption study commissioned in 2011 showed that clothes dryers are widely used in private apartments and landed housing, where the dryers can account for about 5 per cent of their total energy consumption.
Lighting is also top five among energy-consuming household appliances and devices.
The NEA said that over the next few years, it will progressively tighten MEPS levels and also extend MEPS to other appliances to further encourage suppliers to continually bring in even more energy-efficient household appliances.
As suppliers have been introducing more energy efficient models since the implementation of MEPS, the NEA said, there is now an increased availability of such appliances in the market.
The NEA said this spells good news for consumers, as their upfront cost is lowered further as energy efficient appliances become more affordable.
It added that, by choosing appliances carefully, consumers stand to reap significant cost savings over the life-cycle of owning an appliance.
