By Tom Avril, February 4, 2005
With an array of soft drinks, milk and juice stored in six glass-fronted refrigerators, Vinu Patel has the goods to quench your thirst. Unfortunately for Patel, the refrigerators themselves also are thirsty – for electricity. The owner of the Brooklawn Food Mart figures that the six aging machines account for most of the $700 monthly electric bill in his South Jersey store.
But change is on the way for such commercial refrigerators and for seven other energy-hogging appliances, ranging from traffic signals to that living room staple, the “torchiere” lamp.
Last week, New Jersey legislators voted to require dramatic improvements in efficiency for the eight products – a grab-bag of items that were targeted because the amount of energy that they use could be easily reduced.
Commercial refrigerators sold in the state, for example, would have to be up to 38 percent more efficient. New traffic signals would use 90 percent less energy than their older counterparts, by using the same kind of energy-efficient bulbs being installed along Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row.
Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey is expected to sign the bill, which would be the fourth in the nation. A similar bill passed the Pennsylvania Senate last year but did not move in the House. Half a dozen other states have related proposals in the works.
Manufacturers do not like the state-by-state approach, warning that it will lead to higher costs.
The standards in each state are mostly similar, but implementation dates and labeling requirements vary.
“We don’t want to see the process of achieving energy efficiency complicated by a patchwork of state rules,” said Douglas Troutman, a lobbyist for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.
Many of the products were included in one version of the federal energy bill last year, but the massive legislation did not pass. In the meantime, advocates see the state proposals as an important beachhead in winning the nationwide battle.
The benefits are many, said Andrew DeLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a national coalition of environmental groups, energy-efficiency advocates, and one utility company.
Saving energy cuts pollution, reduces the chance of a power blackout and – in the long run – saves customers money, he said.
“It’s kind of a no-brainer policy,” DeLaski said. The energy-efficient appliances can cost more up-front, because of extra insulation, better heat exchangers, or other components. But the energy savings pay for the added cost in less than two years for most of the products in most states, depending on the cost of electricity, DeLaski said.
More efficient versions of the refrigerators in Patel’s store would cost $90 extra per unit, DeLaski said.
But Stephen Yurek, an attorney for the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group, said the extra cost could be more than $200 for higher-end units.
Such models require more copper, and copper prices have soared in recent years, in part because of growing demand in China, Yurek said.
While some manufacturers balk at any new regulation, most are eager to provide energy-efficient products as an option to their customers. But some customers do not have a choice.
Refrigerators like the ones in Patel’s Brooklawn store are supplied for free by beverage companies. In exchange, the companies have their label displayed prominently on the glass doors of the machines, which must contain only their products.
The beverage-makers have no incentive to supply an energy-efficient model because they are not paying the store’s electric bill.
“If you ask for the new ones, they say they don’t have it, or ‘We’ll let you know,’ ” Patel said. Another example of such a “split incentive,” DeLaski said, is the inefficient clothes washers that are installed in apartment complexes.
Vending-machine companies buy the machines but landlords pay the electric bill.
Other products in the New Jersey bill are illuminated exit signs, low-voltage transformers, midsize commercial air conditioners, and gas-fired heaters of the kind used to heat commercial garages.
The law would take effect in 2007 for most of the items. Rules on air conditioners, refrigerators and water-saving standards for the clothes washers would take effect in 2010. Manufacturers and sellers could be fined $250 a day for violations.
It is difficult to calculate the total energy savings in the various states, because the older, existing products have a range of energy efficiency.
None of the eight products currently is subject to a federal efficiency standard, though for some of them, manufacturers have adopted voluntary standards.
The New Jersey Public Interest Research Group estimates that the bill eventually would reduce electricity use in the state by about 1 percent, as old products are replaced with newer ones. And the improvement would take time. The average commercial refrigerator, for example, is replaced every nine years, and many store owners do not buy new appliances.
Down the road from Patel’s market, for example, DeCarlo’s Deli & Catering just spent $500 to buy a used refrigerator to store eggs and meat. A new model would have cost more than twice as much, said Nick DeCarlo, who owns the store with his wife, Ruth.
Yet told of the new bill, the DeCarlos – who also have machines supplied by beverage companies – gave it a thumbs-up.
“Anything that would help costs,” Ruth DeCarlo said, “definitely is a good thing. ”
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