Cooking appliances, covering gas and electric ovens, hobs and range hoods, consume an estimated 8 million tonnes of oil equivalent per year in the EU. Resulting CO2 emissions are in the order of 34 Mt/year, as much as the emissions of 20 million cars.
With the increasing electrification of ovens and hobs, kitchen appliances growingly contribute to electricity peak demand in the evening. Hence the need to make them as energy efficient as possible.
What’s the European Union doing?
Ecodesign requirements for domestic cooking appliances were adopted in 2014, with a range of gradual energy efficiency improvements to comply with, the last of which entered into force in 2019.
Energy labels have existed for ovens since 2004, and were revised in 2013 (with the addition of three classes on top of A). Labels for range hoods were introduced for the first time in 2015, with a scale starting as A-G and gradually incorporating additional classes on top of A (A+ in 2016, A++ in 2018, and A+++ in 2020).
The energy savings from the combined effect of these regulations are expected to reach 0.6 million tonnes of oil equivalent annually by 2020.
The European Commission plans to review these regulations in 2021, with a view to improving the scope and requirements, and to shift the energy labels back to a simple A-G scale.
What does the Coolproducts campaign want?
Extend the ecodesign regulation to a fuller range of kitchen appliances, including products such as microwaves and kettles;
More stringent energy efficiency requirements for hobs and hoods;
Resource efficiency requirements to increase the repairability and recyclability of kitchen appliances and use of the energy labels to communicate information about these aspects (e.g. repairability score);
Introduce energy labelling for hobs, which are currently excluded;
Efficiency ratings for ovens based on primary energy, to account for the energy losses in powerplants;
Consideration of the whole range of appliance functionalities, and not just one specific programme or feature;
More challenging top classes for the energy label for range hoods. This will allow greater differentiation, innovation and further efficiency gains.
Coolproducts technical input and position papers:
Last update: June 2019