A five-year, CFC-Free Energy Efficient Refrigerator Project has begun in China. The comprehensive policy bundles all the elements for market transformation: energy efficient choices and education for customers; technical assistance and financial incentives for manufacturers to build them; distributor incentives to purchase them; dealer incentives to stock them; and a bulk purchasing program for Chinese government agencies.
In 1989, the U.S. EPA agreed to help China eliminate CFCs from refrigerators. A successful prototype model of 40 percent greater efficiency was produced and tested, and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab developed a market transformation program.
China’s refrigerator industry is the largest in the world with sales growing at 21 percent a year. From 1985-1998, households owning a refrigerator climbed from 7-76 percent, but the average Chinese refrigerator is about half as efficient as European refrigerators. Since 80 percent of China’s electricity comes from coal, the benefits of increasing efficiency are tremendous in this populous, increasingly affluent country.
Lawrence Berkeley Lab predicts, for example, that in addition to avoided emissions from coal-burning plants, the program will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 100 million tons as a result of greater efficiency.
Earlier this year the Chinese government certified 103 domestic appliances as energy-efficient, including CFC-free refrigerators. China has had an energy-efficiency policy in place since the early 1980s which has allowed the economy to grow at nearly twice the rate of energy consumption.
Other activities in the five year program include a recycling buy-back pilot program, revision of existing refrigerator efficiency standards, an energy-efficiency labeling system, and an extensive nationwide education campaign.
Some of the Chinese participants in the project are: the China State Environmental Protection Administration, the State Administration for Light Industry, the Household Electric Appliance Research Institute, and domestic refrigerator manufacturers. U.S. participants are the EPA, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Energy Engineering, Underwriters Laboratories, and Lawrence Berkeley Lab. The Global Environmental Facility, through the United Nations Development Program, appropriated $9.3 million toward the $40 million program.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov
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