Energy-efficient appliances can do more than just bring down energy bills: In concert, they can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% of the needed decrease for the world to hit net zero by 2050, according to a new study from efficient appliance nonprofit Clasp.
But that’s only if governments put in place minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for appliances, which the study recommends should be in accordance with “today’s best available technologies.”
Home appliances—think air conditioners, water heaters, and refrigerators—have the potential to make a huge difference in net-zero progress because they account for more than a third of global energy consumption, and that share is only growing. To mitigate increasing energy usage from appliances, regularly updated MEPS help to “phase out less efficient products over time and prevent the dumping of inefficient technologies onto the local market,” the report said.
“Even best-in-class MEPS remain well below the efficiency levels of the best available technologies,” the report noted. “Countries that are already leading in MEPS should make them even more stringent and set a schedule for matching the efficiency of the best-performing appliances currently available on the global market.”
Energy efficiency standards in the US are unlikely to become more stringent, at least in the near term. The Trump administration is working to end or privatize Energy Star, a federal program that sets energy-efficiency standards for home appliances. Additionally, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act phased out the energy-efficient home improvement tax credit, which covered appliances like heat pumps. Both moves were denounced by congressional Democrats at a recent House Energy and Commerce committee hearing.
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“The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill stripped away these tax credits…that were meant to help consumers pay any increased upfront costs on an energy-efficient home,” Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA) said during the hearing. “Now we have an administration that is set on weakening the Energy Star program. Who doesn't love the Energy Star program?”
Republicans, however, expressed a desire to soften energy-efficiency standards, claiming that they drive up costs and prevent manufacturers from making “products that people want to buy at the price they want to pay for it,” committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) said during the hearing. Part of that strategy includes the newly introduced “Don’t Mess With My Home Appliances Act,” which would “prohibit the Secretary of Energy from prescribing any new or amended energy conservation standard for a product that is not technologically feasible and economically justified.”
“No household appliance was off limits in [the Biden administration’s] pursuit of a radical rush to green agenda,” Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA), who introduced the bill, said during the hearing. “It’s a real problem for our consumers.”
But it’s threats to energy-efficiency standards that seem to be a problem for consumers: Consumer Reports earlier this year found that 87% of the nearly 3,000 people surveyed agreed that “home appliances for sale in the US should be required to meet minimum levels of energy efficiency.”